


panthera

by badacts



Series: genus [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: HDM AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2018-11-06 08:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11032626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badacts/pseuds/badacts
Summary: “Felicienne,” Jean snaps. That’s when she turns and snarls at him instead, blank-eyed for a moment before she seems to register her surroundings and the person she’s threatening. She stalks back to Jean’s side like she didn’t just bare her teeth at him, standing tight to his knee.It’s the first time Jeremy has ever seen a daemon react like that towards their own human. It’s also the first time he really, truly begins to understand the magnitude of what the Ravens have done to Jean and his daemon.





	1. uncia

**Author's Note:**

> Not falling for the trap of setting a chapter count this time!! I'm not!!
> 
> Fic warnings for discussion/recollection of abuse and torture.

It’s only after Kevin has already given him away that he tells Jean he’s going to be a Trojan now.

Jean, still largely bed-bound after Renee and Tau snatched them from the Nest, has no choice but to lie there and listen to Kevin talk. It’s not till Kevin stops – and he doesn’t end with a question, because Kevin always knows what is best for Jean – that he actually looks at Jean.

“I don’t suppose you considered asking for my preference,” Jean says. Even to his own ears, he sounds robotic.

“He’s waiting down in the living room to talk to you,” Kevin says by way of reply, and then turns to go. He leaves the door hanging open behind him.

So the Trojan captain travelled all this way just to get a look at the damage. Or maybe Knox just isn’t as sold on the idea as Kevin seems to be. Jean is in no position to put on a good show, but perhaps he’ll score pity points. He finds that he truly doesn’t give a fuck.

Most of him knows that he and Kevin can’t coexist on the same team any more: too much betrayal on Jean’s part, and too much guilt on Kevin’s. But on the other hand, there is just a tiny sliver, shrieking, that wishes that Kevin would at least ask him to stay. Jean swallows it and keeps swallowing.

There’s a knock at the doorframe and Jeremy Knox comes into the room. The last time Jean saw him, they were shaking hands in the Raven’s Nest at the completion of last season’s championship finals. Jeremy had smiled through his disappointment and congratulated Jean on a game well played. Jean thinks he nodded in reply, but he isn’t entirely sure.

He has never seen Jeremy’s daemon up close. She is intimidating, bigger even than Felicienne, though she stays politely near the door when Jeremy comes a little closer. Felicienne, who has been lying on the floor at Jean’s bedside, sits up onto her haunches between Jean and the pair of them.

Jeremy looks like an archetypal boy-next-door, down to the smile. There’s no sign that he’s even noticed the damage to Jean’s face, which either means that he is very stupid or very good at schooling his expression. And whatever people say about athletes, Jean knows one doesn’t become captain of one of the best teams in the country by being an idiot.

“Hi, Jean,” Jeremy says. “Kevin tells me you’re looking for a new team.”

“I hope Kevin told you I’m contractually obligated to find a new team so that my life won’t become forfeit,” Jean replies, rough-voiced. Whatever part of him that was involved in keeping secrets died back in Evermore when the rest of him should have.

There’s a shift in Jeremy’s expression. “He did mention that, yes. He also said you deserve a team less abusive than your last.”

Jean hums. It’s derisive. “Your words, not his.”

“I’ve spoken to Kevin enough to be a pretty good translator,” Jeremy replies. He looks at Jean pointedly then, eyes zig-zagging over the visible wounds. “Looking at you, I think he’s right.”

Jean doesn’t care if Jeremy looks at him. He also doesn’t care what Jeremy thinks he deserves. He says, “So are you going to take me or not?”

It’s vaguely irritating that Jeremy isn’t thrown off by his attitude. Then again, this is a man who has in the past freely socialised with Kevin and, from all accounts, actually enjoyed it. Jeremy says, “That’s for you to decide. I’m here to pitch the team to you.”

“Pitch your team to me?”

“The Trojans are a good team, but there are plenty of good Class I teams. Maybe you would prefer the Lions. Or maybe you want to do as Kevin has and join a lower-ranked team to make it your own. That’s for you to decide. I’m just here to make my team seem like a good choice.”

“Why would you do that?” Jean demands. “In case you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t people queuing up down the street waiting to sign me.”

“That’s just because they don’t know you’re a free agent now. I’m just lucky I have an in,” Jeremy says, amusement sparking in his eyes. “You’re a very good player, as I’m sure you know. Anyone would be lucky to sign you.”

Jean knows his worth. It’s been calculated down the dollar. He’s known the precise value of his skill and body since he was twelve years old. He holds up a hand between them so it catches the light. His smallest finger and ring finger are taped together, as are the his middle and index fingers, but there’s no missing the marked crookedness of all of his fingers. His thumb is straight, but only because it’s impossible to hold a racquet with a broken thumb.

“I’ve never had a proper x-ray, but I’ve been reliably informed by the woman who has practically had to spoon-feed me for the past few weeks that it’s very likely my joints are damaged,” he says. His voice is matter-of-fact. “At some point, I’ll probably struggle to hold a racquet. I don’t know when. I haven’t tried for weeks anyway – maybe I’ll arrive in California and we’ll find out I’m already past it.”

What he’d said earlier hangs in the air between them: _I’m contractually obligated to find a new team so that my life won’t become forfeit_. No Class I team will invest in a player without hands that work. Kevin is an exception to the rule, just like he always is.

“That’s without the other things wrong with me,” Jean says. There’s too many to list. “So you can dress it up as much as you like, but either way I am still a charity case, and the question is still ‘will you take me, or not?’”

Jeremy seems to have been pared back by Jean’s words, his smile stripped away completely. “Answer one question for me.”

“Fine.” Jean can’t see that it will matter.

“Do you have a preference for the team you join? Any at all. Even if it’s staying here with the Foxes.” Perhaps Jeremy would fight Kevin over allowing Jean to stay.

“I don’t care,” Jean says. “You cannot possibly understand the degree to which I do not care what team I end up with.”

It doesn’t matter. None of it does.

“Then it should be easy enough to settle on mine,” Jeremy says, and then goes through the satchel at his side and extracts a large pile of papers. “This is your contract, I’ll leave it with you to consider. You can fax through the signed papers whenever you’re ready, or not if you decide on another team. Can I come closer?”

“Yes,” Jean says.

“I actually wasn’t talking to you,” Jeremy says, which is when Jean realises he’d addressed Felicienne directly.

“She won’t talk to you,” Jean says, taken aback. Neil Josten’s daemon is incredibly and rudely forthright, which has accustomed him to the idea of daemons speaking to people other than their own, but he doesn’t think he’s ever seen a person speak to someone else’s daemon like that. Also, Felicienne hasn’t even spoken to Jean since Neil told them they were free of Riko.

“She doesn’t need to talk to me to show that she doesn’t want me near you,” Jeremy says. “She has teeth the size of my thumb.”

“She won’t _hurt_ you.”

“She’s been snarling at me since I walked into the room,” Jeremy says, matter-of-fact. “How do you think I know about the teeth?”

Jean can’t see her from here, but Jeremy has no reason to lie. He considers reaching out to touch Felicienne but doesn’t. He isn’t sure that it would actually be reassuring.

Jeremy drops to a knee, which also puts most of him below Jean’s eyeline. All he can make out is Jeremy’s eyes, and they’re once again not on Jean at all.

“May I?” he asks, seemingly unaware that he’s put his throat at mouth-level. Behind him, his daemon doesn’t twitch. After a moment, he leans up and puts the contract on the bedside table, and then scoots backwards before standing.

“Jean,” he says, and smiles again. “It was nice to see you. Look after yourself.”

Then he leaves. His daemon pads silently after him.

 

* * *

 

Jean Moreau’s daemon is extraordinarily beautiful.

Jeremy is used to the admiration that Salome earns, with her smooth yellow coat and glinting gold eyes and enormous paws. However, she’s large enough that many daemons will avoid her outright, wary of her size and quiet.

Jean’s snow leopard is smaller, and Trojan daemons are generally bold and tactile, so it’s unsurprising that she’s approached straight away by admirers. What is surprising is the ferocity with which she greets the attention – her mouth opens, and she snarls straight in the face of Sara’s red panda daemon Michal, making him tumble backwards.

“Felicienne,” Jean snaps. That’s when she turns and snarls at him instead, blank-eyed for a moment before she seems to register her surroundings and the person she’s threatening. She stalks back to Jean’s side like she didn’t just bare her teeth at him, standing tight to his knee.

It’s the first time Jeremy has ever seen a daemon react like that towards their own human. It’s also the first time he really, truly begins to understand the magnitude of what the Ravens have done to Jean and his daemon.

It’s different to seeing Jean patched together, holding up his hand between them calmly to show Jeremy the horrendous, poorly healed mess that has been made of his fingers. That was a calculated attempt at shocking Jeremy. This is a purer loss of control, and one with a trigger.

Jean drops one of his hands to her skull, stroking once down the back of her neck before putting his hand back into his pocket. She doesn’t react to the touch at all.

It’s easy after that to quietly warn his team to tell their daemons not to touch Felicienne. After that, they give her space, and afford Jean the same courtesy.

Afterwards in his room, he says to Salome, “I don’t think I can do this.”

She whips him across the shins with her tail, hard enough to sting. “You should have considered that before you decided to take him as a challenge.”

“That’s not,” Jeremy stutters. “I don’t think he’s a _challenge_.”

“He tried to imply that he’s worthless as an asset and therefore as a human being, so you basically strong-armed him into signing with this team.”

“Okay, A, he’s wrong about both those things in a dozen different ways, and you know it. And B, he had a choice but he didn’t care. At least here they’ll be safe.”

“Safe,” Salome says, like she’s musing on it. “You think we can keep them safe, if it comes down to it.”

Jeremy rolls over and presses his face into the back of her neck. “Maybe I’ll have to ask Andrew Minyard for tips.”

They’ve finally stopped playing the video footage of Andrew breaking Riko’s arm at odd intervals in the sports coverage. Jeremy thinks it’s been seared into his retinas – for someone who plays a violent sport, he’s surprisingly squeamish. Or maybe it’s just the sick knowledge that Neil Josten could have been killed on live television. Or, maybe it was the look on Andrew’s face.

Salome hums, though the sound vibrates out like a purr. “I think it’s the things on the inside of him that he needs to be protected from.”

“I don’t know that Minyard can help me with that one,” Jeremy says, more as joke than anything else. “I don’t know if anyone can.”

It’s possible that he’s bitten off more than he can chew. It’s possible Jean will go down – and to look at him, it’s impossible to imagine there’s any further to go, but Jeremy knows that isn’t the case – and that he’ll take Jeremy down with him.

“Stop,” Salome says. Her tail slaps him again. “He is not your responsibility alone. He’s part of our team.”

There’s no point in arguing with her – Jeremy rarely wins when they do, and usually only then because she gets bored and gives up. She is him, and he is brutally stubborn, and she is that tenfold, mixed with the patience that he’s not great at giving in to.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he says instead. “It’s like she didn’t even know him.”

He can’t imagine Salome doing the same to him. But then again, he hasn’t forgotten the bared-teeth warning Felicienne had given him from Jean’s bedside, between Jean and the flimsy threat that Jeremy posed.

“I don’t know that she did,” Salome replies. “They should have stayed with the Foxes.”

“No,” Jeremy says. “We’ll make it work.”

He is, after all, stubborn.

 

* * *

 

“I only have one question, and it is ‘what the fuck’,” Alvarez says around a mouthful of fried chicken. “Jeremy. _What the fuck_.”

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” he recommends. “Here, honey, move over, I can see Laila coming.”

They’ve got a corner table to give them more room, and Salome obligingly shifts out of the way to clear space for their starting goalkeeper and her ginger tomcat daemon. Michal leaps down off of the table to greet Jasper, looking like a caricature of him with his violently red coat and giant tail.

“I could hear you from outside,” Laila says, taking the seat beside Alvarez. “If you’re going to yell that loudly, you could at least not swear. There are children around here.”

Alvarez leans over, pecks Laila on the cheek, and then says, “Whatever, _Mom_.”

Laila huffs but smiles anyway, pinching Alvarez’s nose lightly. “What are you yelping over anyway?”

That breaks the sweet moment quicker than Jeremy miming being sick in the background. Alvarez gestures to Jeremy and says, “Jean Moreau.”

Laila looks at Jeremy. “What about him?”

Jeremy shrugs. “The conversation hadn’t got that far, to be honest.”

“How about the fact that he is the precise opposite of a team player?” Alvarez says. There’s a lot of hand waving accompanying her voice. “That’s he unpredictable on the court, and his conditioning is terrible? Or that his own daemon _hates_ him?”

“She doesn’t hate him,” Jeremy says before he thinks about it. It’s not like he actually knows that for certain.

“I don’t know why you got Coach to sign him,” Alvarez continues, like Jeremy didn’t say anything. “He isn’t a good fit here. I know Kevin Day asked you to as a favour, and I know he’s a good player, but we have plenty of those that we can actually _work_ with.”

“I didn’t sign him because he’s good,” Jeremy says, and then curses himself inwardly. Salome bunts him gently in the calf with her massive forehead as a gentle rebuke.

That’s caught Laila’s full attention. “Was it out of pity?”

“Because _that’s_ such a good basis for selecting players!” Alvarez squawks. “Are we _Foxes_ now?”

“Okay, for one thing, the Foxes just won championships, I don’t think we can make any negative comments about their selection process,” Jeremy says. “And for another, no. No, pity had nothing to do with it.”

Both girls look equally dubious at that assertion. Laila says, “Then why?”

Jeremy blows out a breath. “Because I think he can be better.”

“In terms of…?” Alvarez asks.

“He’s good, right? He’s completely out of step with the rest of the team, he’s struggling to find a place, his fitness is shitty, he’s been living in hell for years – but he’s still good,” Jeremy says. “I want to see what he’s like when we deal with all the rest of those things. I want to see how good he can really be.”

Laila tilts her head. “And if we can’t? If he doesn’t ever fit in here, if he can’t work with us, if he never sorts out whatever demons he has – what then?”

“Then he’s still good enough to be here,” Jeremy says. “And he’ll be safe, and alive.”

Alvarez squints at him. “You like him, don’t you?”

“Uh-”

“You actually genuinely like that asshole. God, Jeremy, why?”

Objectively, there’s not really much about Jean to like. He’s taciturn, brisk to the point of cruelty when he does speak, has basically no patience, and treats the rest of the Trojans like they’re annoying insects most of the time. His daemon won’t talk to any of theirs, and half the time looks like she might savage anyone who dares approach her.

“Yeah, I guess,” Jeremy says, because despite all of those things, it’s really hard not to like someone who survived everything Jean has and then assured Jeremy with a level of surprise that his daemon, all several hundred pounds of her, wouldn’t hurt him. The same way he can’t quite help liking Felicienne, who was frightened and protective but still let him close, just for a moment, when he asked.

So, Jeremy is a sucker. No one is really surprised by that.

Alvarez covers her face with both hands, totally overdramatic. “ _Why?_ ”

Jeremy shrugs. “Just do.”

Jasper knocks Michal over under the table at the same time as Laila prods Alvarez in the ribs with a finger and tells her to get a grip. The two smaller daemons go rolling into Salome, who bats at them very gently with a giant paw. They feel like twin sparks to Jeremy through the bond, under the warmth of affection from Salome herself.

“You shouldn’t be so shocked,” Laila reminds Alvarez. “He likes everyone. It’s a character flaw we’re never going to iron out of him.”

“I’m going to befriend Moreau, and it’s all your fault,” Alvarez tells him. “I want you to remember that when they murder us. All of you.”

Laila pats her hand. “We’ll think of you fondly after you’re gone.”

Jeremy is slightly more concerned that she might actually be successful in making friends with Jean. It sounds like something that might end in disaster.

“If he doesn’t kill you, you’ll make a pretty formidable pair,” he points out.

Alvarez smiles, showing her teeth. “Well, yeah. There is that.”

 

* * *

 

It’s difficult.

Everything is. Jean has finally gotten rid of the last of the aftereffects of concussion, but his memory is still shot and his body keeps betraying him when he least expects it. Not on the court, though his fitness is terrible. It’s more that he can’t stop hearing his racing heart when none of his teammates are around, and can’t really catch his breath, and can’t see straight, and can’t sleep.

Also, Felicienne won’t talk to him. She won’t talk to anyone.

She settled in the first month they were in Evermore. Jean had put her on the bed between him and the rest of the room – for all the good it ever did him, or her – and tried to use her warmth to ease his hurts. It hadn’t helped. All it had given him with the clarity that no one was coming to save him, and a daemon who is beautiful and perfect and broken in ways that Jean can barely stand to look at.

Jean thinks she hates him now because he needed Renee and Tau to rescue them, and Kevin and Onyx to make him stay, and Neil and Sin to make a deal that bought them both a chance at survival in exchange for their freedom. Because he could have protected her and himself if he’d just tried harder. Because he is good for nothing except for being saved, and for stopping someone from scoring a goal on an Exy court.

She still lies between him and the door to his new bedroom. But she won’t speak to him, and won’t respond to his touch, and if he thought he was broken before then this is a whole different kind of thing.

Not even Riko’s daemon ever stopped talking to him. That’s all he can think of.

He calls Renee a few times a week because she’s a calm bright thing on his horizon that he doesn’t want to lose sight of yet. It also helps that she always seems so pleased to hear from him.

“Hello Jean,” she says, on speakerphone. “Hi Felicienne. Are you settling in okay?”

“We’re alright,” Jean replies, because Felicienne won’t. He doubts Renee has missed her new silence. “How is your team?”

“Typical post-summer chaos,” she replies. “Our new players are an interesting group. How are yours settling in?”

“I’m one of them,” he points out. He never experienced the normal freshman bumps of settling into a new team until now. It’s rather strange and unsettling, but also in some ways nice. Mostly because it’s so different to being labelled as part of the perfect court at fifteen.

“Of course,” she agrees. It sounds like she’s smiling. “How is Jeremy?”

“The same. I keep waiting for the smile to crack, but it hasn’t yet.”

“Perhaps it’s genuine,” Renee points out gently. “That said, even people with good tempers have bad days. It doesn’t make them bad people.”

Jean is perfectly aware of that. He’d never seen that side of Renee until he came to in the back seat of Minyard’s very expensive car and caught sight of her expression in the rear view mirror. Then again, she isn’t a perfect comparison. He says, “I know.”

“Mm-hm. Have you spoken with Kevin?”

“Don’t,” Jean says. He has no intention of speaking to Kevin at any point in the near future. He’s grown unaccustomed to anger, but he’s gotten a taste of it over the last eighteen months because of Kevin and he’s not interested in losing himself in it.

“Alright.” Renee is so easy to deal with. Jean sighs, releasing the tension that he hadn’t even realised had crept into him. “What about your other teammates?”

“Are you going to set me up on playdates if I tell you I can’t make friends by myself?” Jean asks, with a touch of acid.

She laughs. “Of course not, Jean.”

That’s the exact point his door bursts open. He jumps. Felicienne tenses, her claws scraping on the duvet.

It’s Sara Alvarez, with her cutesy red panda daemon on her shoulder. “Jean!”

“I’m on the phone,” he says, more out of surprise than anything else. It doesn’t matter, because Alvarez doesn’t look shamed by it.

“Are you? With who? If it’s Kevin Day, tell him I think he’s amazing but kind of a dick for tattooing a chess piece on his face,” she chirps.

“Do you have any sense of propriety at all?” Jean demands.

“Not really, no,” she replies. “At least I don’t ignore the people I’m talking to on the phone, though.”

Clearly catching that, Renee laughs like a bell. Without looking away from Alvarez, Jean picks up the phone, clicks it off of loudspeaker, and then lifts it to his ear.

“Ohhhh my god, it’s Renee Walker,” Alvarez faux-whispers. “Tell her I love her. Jean. Jean!”

“I need to deal with this,” Jean says to Renee, who is still chuckling at the other end.

“That’s fine Jean,” she says, voice bubbling. “I’ll talk to you soon. Tau sends his love to you both. Oh, and tell Alvarez hello from me.”

“Goodbye,” Jean says, and hangs up. He pointedly does not pass the greeting on. “What do you want?”

“I come in peace, no need to give me that tone,” she says, holding her hands up. “Just wondering if you’ve, you know, gone anywhere on campus other than the court since you arrived here.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re a sad shut-in and I’m worried you’re going to get rickets and die from never seeing the light of day?” she suggests, and then, “Kidding, kidding. Actually, I’m hoping to ask you a favour.”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Is that the only word you know? And shouldn’t it be ‘what’ anyway? Wait, don’t distract me. I want you to teach me Raven drills.”

Not a single person has asked Jean to divulge any information on Raven training. He doesn’t owe the Ravens anything anymore, never mind keeping their secrets, but he’s surprised that one of the Trojans’ shining stars would care about the training of a team that is very quickly falling down the stairs of rumours and awful press confirmations.

He says, “What.”

“You show me their drills, and I’ll help you with your fitness training. I’ve worked pretty hard on mine after spring finals.” She grins proudly. “I’m top on the team in interval testing now. You’re a backliner, I’m a backliner – we may as well start working together. Also, I’ll show you around campus. That’s not part of the deal, I just feel kinda sorry for you.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” Jean asks. He sounds pained even to his own ears.

Alvarez shrugs broadly. “Maybe when I’m on the court? Anyway, are you going to accept or not? I don’t have all day.”

Jean’s terribly unfit, and the Trojan standard is high now that they’re aping the Foxes in running full halves. Jean has probably never played a full half, and he’s a backliner – he’s built for blocking and body hits, not stamina. If he doesn’t improve, he’ll probably be sitting on the bench and making way for fitter players than him.

Also, Raven drills are aimed at obsessive perfection, but there’s nothing inherently harmful in them. And despite Alvarez’s effervescent personality and cute daemon, he’s seen her on the court and thinks they might suit her.

“Fine,” he says.

Her grin increases in size. “Ha!”

Jean raises an eyebrow at her. She says, “Uh, nothing. Run tomorrow morning before practice? That way you know I’m good for it.”

“Fine,” Jean says. “Now go away.”

Surprisingly, she does go to the door like she’s going to leave. “We’ll make a time to tour campus, too. Actually maybe it’s better if I just walk you to your classes when school starts up…”

She doesn’t even say goodbye, that vaguely concerning statement trailing off right before she slams the door after her. Felicienne’s ears flicker at the offensive noise, and she stares at Jean for a second before blinking her eyes closed.

It’s the longest she’s looked at him in days. He thinks about speaking, but swallows it instead.


	2. onca

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for nightmares, discussion of bullying, recounting of abuse/torture.

After morning practice on the first day of classes, Jean expects Alvarez to burst into his room at any moment to follow through on her idea of walking him there. When she doesn’t make an abrupt appearance he throws a glance to the clock on the wall, sighs, and goes to leave.

When he opens the door, he nearly jumps – Laila is standing there with her hand raised to knock, her ginger cat daemon tucked under her other arm.

“Hi Jean,” she says. She pronounces his name perfectly. “Sara forgot when she said she’d walk you that her morning classes are on the other side of campus from yours.”

“I’m sure I can find my way,” Jean says. He thinks he’s talked one-on-one with Laila perhaps once since he arrived in California, and he’s strangely uncomfortable to be doing it now. Laila is a little bit like Renee, but Jean struggles to read her the same way.

“We’re going in the same direction, so you may as well let me walk you now I’m here,” she says, brisk and to the point, and Jean really can’t argue with that logic. “Come on.”

She puts down her daemon so he can walk, but he makes no move to interact with Felicienne where she stalks along at Jean’s heels. Jean’s not stupid – even Alvarez, as forward as she is, won’t let her daemon go anywhere near Felicienne. They don’t trust her, and Jean thinks they’re right not to.

They take the elevator down to the ground floor and exit out into the warm morning. Autumn doesn’t seem to have hit Los Angeles yet, and Jean has found he enjoys the change. Laila walks alongside him, with her daemon in front of them, tail held high, and Felicienne at Jean’s heels.

“You’re a sports science major,” Laila says after a short while. It’s not a question. “Do you enjoy it?”

“It’s fine,” Jean says. He has no desire to discuss the complexities of his feelings about the program every Raven studied before 9 in the morning on his first day of class. Truthfully, he doesn’t much care, because it doesn’t much matter for him. “What’s your major?”

“The same as yours.” Her mouth quirks with a smile. “I enjoy it. I want to play professionally when I graduate, but I want to do something in the industry after I retire so it works for me.”

Jean hasn’t ever thought about life beyond retirement. Honestly, he hasn’t even really thought about life beyond graduation. He stops the thought now before it can take over, but it leaves the taste of uncertainty at the back of his mouth even so. It tastes like fear; or maybe like blood.

It was easy to say the truth of his situation to Jeremy Knox from his sick bed, but here amongst the vibrancy of the Trojans it’s harder to say _I don’t have a life expectancy outside of Exy_. For all he knows, the Moriyamas will have him killed the second he retires and stops being an asset to them. It’s harder to be amongst people like Alvarez, like Laila, who have likely never questioned that they’ll get a future, never mind their right to have that future.

“Okay,” Jean says, instead of _how does it feel?_ Or, _I really don’t care._

Laila shoots him a quick looks, her smile growing just for a moment. It’s closed-mouthed and surprisingly warm. “I’m guessing that Sara does most of the talking when you two spend time together.”

“She rarely stops,” Jean says drily, and then wonders for a second if that will offend Laila before she laughs.

“Only when she’s asleep, and sometimes not even then,” Laila agrees.

They’re getting towards the centre of campus, and it’s much busier with students bustling between unfamiliar buildings. USC itself is different, but the students look pretty much the same. Jean has a moment to feel strangely lost in the crowd without a partner dressed to match him, and without the attention that comes from being a Raven amongst their home crowd.

That moment ends because he abruptly realises that he has caught the attention of several people bypassing them. Jean is six-four, has scars across the side of his face bared by his cropped hair, and wears a tattoo on his cheek that has always defined him. He’s used to drawing eyes, but it feels faintly like an assault when he knows they’re looking at him as a Raven a long way from home, and a mystery the press still hasn’t solved after a long summer of speculation.

“Ignore them,” Laila advises from his side. “Jeremy did a very good job of winding them up over you when you were signed, so they’re excited to see you here in the flesh.”

Jean doesn’t think that’s true. It’s more likely they’re wondering whether he’ll self-destruct when he walks onto the court, and whether he’ll take their hometown heroes with him.

“I’m looking forward to getting back on the court on Friday,” Laila muses aloud. “It’s going to be interesting. Jeremy was sure there’d be less spectators after semi-finals last year, but the stadium is sold out.”

“Why?” Jean asks. The Trojans had lost, but they’ve lost games before.

“Because lots of people were pissed off that he cut the line right down to play the Foxes. They said he signed us straight out of finals,” Laila says, and then shrugs. “Which is true. But I think we’re better for it.”

Despite himself, Jean has to agree. The Trojans have always been good, but there’s a new determination and level of speed and skill on show, great than what Jean has ever seen from them before.

He says, “We’re playing with the same numbers this game.” He’s lucky to have made the starting line, really, though as a backliner he’ll be subbed off. It’s the strikers who have to force themselves through an entire game.

“Yes,” Laila says. She grins, a little bit more sharply, and suddenly looks like much more than the calm and logical vice captain on show most of the time. “Jeremy really likes to be right sometimes.”

Jean looked up the media coverage on his new team between his signing and him arriving in California, and it was all ruthlessly critical of Jeremy’s decision. The Ravens never would have made a choice like that – sacrificing a win, especially a semi-final win, just for the purpose of experimentation – but the part of Jean which has never been fully feathered can understand exactly why. He understands it now, seeing the results directly, but he understood it months ago too.

“I think he wants to prove us to you, too,” Laila says into the quiet between them. When Jean looks at her, there’s a sly tilt to her face.

“He shouldn’t bother,” Jean replies brusquely. “I know your team.”

“Our team,” Laila corrects. “And you don’t really. But you will.”

 

* * *

 

Alvarez slams her tray table down next to Jeremy’s so hard her water bottle – thankfully still capped – jumps a couple of inches in the air and then rolls on its side across the table.

Jeremy jumps, too. “Fuck, Sara!”

“Did you know Jean won’t eat in the hall because he’s worried his daemon won’t cope?” she demands, sitting down beside Jeremy. Micah is somewhere under the table pushing himself into Salome’s side.

“I presumed he – wait, did he tell you that?” Jeremy asks. The dining halls have only been open for this week – before that the athletes who were on campus for summer practices all ate in town, or bought things to cook in their dorms. With all of them on a free ride though, it makes sense for them to eat on the school’s dollar now that they can.

Alvarez waves him off. “Don’t be ridiculous, he doesn’t tell me anything. I’m capable of making an educated guess though.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Jeremy replies. “It’s just that usually you don’t bother to.”

“Excuse me, rude,” she says, picking up her water bottle and setting it back upright. “Don’t distract me. I need to make a plan.”

“About what?”

Alvarez’s expression turns a little bit incredulous. “Are you even listening to me? Jean!”

Jeremy stares at her for a moment, and then says, “I’m frightened for him now.”

“I thought we were trying to turn him into a well-adjusted member of society,” she replies. “Goal number one: make sure he can eat in the dining hall without his daemon savaging anyone.”

“That’s not what we’re trying to do,” Jeremy protests. “We’re trying to make him happy here! Not torture him.”

The look that Alvarez gives him a little bit too penetrating. “He’s not going to be happy if you completely ignore him and wait until he turns into a real boy. Just FYI.”

“We can’t _turn_ him into a – I can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Jeremy says, clapping a hand over his eyes for a moment. “I’m not ignoring him. I’m giving him space. Just in case you’ve forgotten, his relationship with his last captain was a little bit fraught.”

“I thought you liked him.” She still sounds scathing at the idea, even though she’s here defending the man to Jeremy.

“That doesn’t mean that _he_ likes _me_ , Sara.”

“Are you having a crisis of faith right now? You know that everyone likes you, right?”

“Okay, that’s definitely not true-”

“Shh, I’m talking now. Everyone definitely does like you, except for me right now this second, but that’s not even the point. I’ve got Jean teaching me Raven drills, and Laila walks him to class. He talks to Renee Walker on the phone every couple of days. He knows how to be around people. So now you have to follow through and be around him too.”

“I’m around him twice a day at least.”

“Yeah, for practice! That doesn’t count – I’m talking _extra-curricular_ time.” She rests her chin on her hand and stares at him. “Wait, is this really about the captain thing?”

Jeremy pauses for a moment to consider. “Uh, not really.”

“Okay, now you really need to explain this to me. Why are you avoiding him?”

“I’m not, Jesus! It’s just,” Jeremy says, and then sighs. “Felicienne is frightened of other daemons.”

Alvarez tilts her head, considering. “I’d say ‘wary’ or ‘protective’, but I see your point.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, my daemon is a three hundred pound predator.”

“So you’re implying that I’m fine to be around him because my daemon is fuzzy muppet?” She’s more affectionate than serious, and under the table Micah attacks her shoelaces in playful protest.

“I’m not implying anything. I’m saying that Felicienne might find being around Salome stressful.”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Alvarez asks.

Jeremy stares at her. It’s on the tip of his tongue to say _because that would be awkward,_ but this is Jean Moreau they’re talking about. If he ever refrains from saying exactly what he means, Jeremy hasn’t heard him do so.

“Look, I’ve been spending time with him, and he’s more,” she makes a face like she’s tasting something bad, “Resilient than you’re giving him credit for. Ugh, I can’t believe I’m defending that dick. To _you_ , of all people.”

“Oh my god,” Jeremy can’t resist teasing. “You like him, too.”

Alvarez throws a piece of cucumber from her side salad at Jeremy. Her aim is excellent, but Jeremy manages to duck so it flies over his head rather than hitting him in the centre of the forehead.

“Yeah I do,” she replies aggressively. “The same way I like you, because you’re a dick too.”

“No one will believe you,” he tells her.

“That’s because you’re a goddamned liar,” she mutters, putting a piece of cucumber into her mouth and crunching it.

“I know he’s resilient,” Jeremy says, more seriously. “I’ve seen him in a pretty abysmal state, remember? He’s bounced back pretty impressively considering it all. But I don’t think we should push him. I think he’s been pushed enough.”

Alvarez hums. “That was really deep.”

“I try.”

“I’ll put the ‘real boy’ plan on hold,” she says. “The ‘friend’ plan is still go, though, and you need to get your ass in on it. Do it for the team. I’m starting to like Jean, but he really is still an asshole.”

“And you think I can make a difference?”

“Boy, have you met you?” she makes a face. “You’re a layer of smiley good will over a layer of brutal determination and sarcasm over top of a centre of gooey marshmallow.”

“He’s going to kill me,” Jean tells her.

She shrugs. “Well, I’m still alive. He’s obviously more tolerant than he looks, right?”

 

* * *

 

“Hey!” Jeremy chirps. “Do you mind if I sit?”

Jean gestures to the empty chair across from him. He says nothing, but his face has a hint of _it’s a free country Knox_ written across it. Felicienne is sitting with her back to his chair, gazing out over the room, so Salome lies down behind Jeremy’s seat like a bookend once he’s in it.

“Thanks,” Jeremy says, settling. He has books in his bag as a ruse, but no actual intention of studying – he doesn’t like doing it in the library, because he gets twitchy and the quiet doesn’t agree with him. Also it’s the first week of class, and he hasn’t actually learned anything yet. “I just wanted to check in with you.”

“Making sure your team is meeting my expectations?” Jean asks, without looking up from his book. From anyone else, that would probably be a joke. From Jean, it’s an attack. Jeremy smiles despite himself.

“I suppose,” he replies. “But hey. Your hands are in working order after all.”

Those hands twitch on the table, the comment earning him Jean’s full, flat-faced attention. He says, “Yes.”

“We’re playing tomorrow. Do you think you’re ready?”

“I think that I am not fit enough to make your starting line, and yet I am still on it.”

“It’s Coach’s starting line, not mine,” Jeremy replies. “And I agree with you, actually. You’re not fit enough. Thankfully you’re skilled enough to make up for your lack of stamina, but your presence on the court is going to screw up our substitutions compared to the plan we made for this season. I wanted Mark instead. But Rhemann wanted you to play, so you’re playing.”

If he hadn’t had Jean’s full attention before, he definitely does now. Along with it is his consideration, familiar from the Jean Jeremy saw in that bed in South Carolina a few months back. There’s no disagreement in his face – if there’s anything Jeremy knows about him, it’s that he appreciates frank criticism over meaningless praise.

“Your teamwork is also still abysmal, by the way. Laila is a few bad practises away from instituting literal team-building exercises just because of you,” Jeremy continues. “Also, Alvarez is worried that you’re not actually eating.”

Jean blinks. “I eat.”

“Not in the dining hall, you don’t. Are you snacking on protein bars in your room or something?”

“Did you tell every player on your team to keep their daemons away from mine?” Jean demands, rather than answering.

“Yes,” Jeremy admits without a pause. “Was I wrong to?”

Jean stares at him for a long moment. “I don’t understand you.” It’s not a denial. Actually, there’s something like relief in his face.

“I’m not like what you’re used to,” Jeremy says. It’s not until the words are out of his mouth that he fully recognises the truth of them. He is nothing at all like Riko Moriyama.

“Your daemon is a lion,” Jean says. It’s a statement, but it’s also a question. Jeremy feels the set of his mouth turn a little rueful.

“No one ever asks me about that,” he says. “Well, except for campus counsellors all the way through high school, and every psychologist I’ve dealt with since coming to USC.”

Jean doesn’t reply, but his pale eyes are expectant as he watches Jeremy. It figures he would ask, really. And just because Jeremy isn’t often asked doesn’t mean the reason is a secret.

“It’s boring,” Jeremy warns, but doesn’t pause before going on, “I was a real target for bullies as a kid. Softest thing you ever saw – they had a running competition on who could make me cry the most times in a month, I think. It kinda stuck with me, I guess. She settled pretty early.”

“She’s big,” Jean observes blandly. His eyes say _that can’t be it_. Maybe he’s looking for a sob story to make himself feel better, but Jeremy doubts that.

Jeremy shrugs. “I told you it’s boring.”

That’s not it. Soft hearted Jeremy had been in more fights before high school than he has on the Class I court, though always over someone else rather than himself. He bled out of his protectiveness, and Salome’s form is the direct result of that. Lionesses are fiercely, frighteningly protective.

It had been another world, being a high school freshman with sleek-coated Salome at his side, the youngest starter for the Exy team after trials. The fights stopped, and Jeremy blossomed into someone no one could even dream of bullying, but at the core of him was both a heart as soft as marshmallow and a shielding nature like stone.

“Do you think she doesn’t suit me?” Jeremy asks, because he’s curious about Jean’s answer.

The look he gets in response is considering, and more than a little cautious. “I don’t know.”

He should, though. Alvarez is right. Jeremy getting Jean at arm’s length won’t help him, not when Jeremy is his own best weapon.

He’s a people person. Sue him.

“Come and eat with me,” Jeremy says, the words jolting out him. Jean stares at him like he’s grown another head. “In the dining hall. You already walk to class with Laila and go for runs with Alvarez. Surely you can socialise with me one on one for a half hour.”

“No,” Jean replies.

“Why not?”

“You know why not.” Jean’s voice is precise, turning towards vicious. “Seeing as you make all your gambles on being so clever about people.”

That makes Jeremy sound much more conniving than he actually is. “I made a guess based on observations, in an attempt to make you more comfortable.”

“You brought me here.”

Jeremy did do that. He blinks. “Are you angry about that?”

Jean looks like he wants to be angry, but there’s no true bite of it in his voice, or any obvious trace of it written across his face. He says, “I signed the contract.”

“So, are you angry at yourself?”

Jean had said he didn’t care. Jean had also implied that he wasn’t worth Jeremy’s time. Jean is alive despite everything when he could be dead in his grave instead, and he’s here on Jeremy’s court, and it’s not because Jeremy made him an offer that he couldn’t refuse. Nor is it because he didn’t have a choice, no matter what Salome thinks.

It must be hard, Jeremy thinks, to be so bloody-minded and so broken at the same time.

Jean doesn’t reply. That’s fine. Jeremy suspects he knows the answer anyway.

“The offer’s there, anyway. Dinner dates, as long as you don’t get a better option,” Jeremy says, and wriggles his eyebrows. That also doesn’t get a response besides very vague distaste. “I’ll stop by your room tonight.”

He stands, pushing his chair back once Salome slides to her feet. “Just ignore the knocking if you don’t want to come.”

There’s no harm in asking. On the other hand, Jeremy is persistent, and that, when it comes to it, might be his best bet with Jean.

“He’s a challenge,” Salome murmurs as they walk out in the afternoon sun. She’s not stating a fact, she’s making fun of Jeremy.

“Shut up,” he mutters back.

 

* * *

 

Jean gets nightmares now worse than he ever did back in the Ravens’ Nest.

He wakes up tasting blood, retching on it. He can’t move any more than rolling to the side of the bed and hanging his head over it, spitting into the trashcan he leaves there every night now.

When the roiling in his stomach eases, he has to stay there until he has the strength to push himself back onto the mattress. He aches down to his bones, shaking with it, like all the old breaks are making themselves known at once. Every inch of his body is icy with sweat.

In his head, he’s breaking his own fingers while he feels every bone in Felicienne’s body groan with strain under the pressure of Riko’s daemon crushing her. He’s drowning on dry land. He’s bleeding under the faux-careful press of a knife, used by a butcher pretending to be an artist.

“Filly,” he says. It’s an old name, one he taught himself not to use, but right now he can’t resist the shape and sound of it. It’s been weeks of this, every night. He’s breaking himself.

For a moment, he feels her eyes on him and thinks that she won’t move from her place at the foot of his bed. He jolts when he feels the brush of fur against his cheek.

When she presses against him, she’s shaking too. Their minds aren’t synchronised in sleep, but she feels what he does, especially when it’s so strong that he almost relives it. And she has her own bad memories as well. They hurt alongside one another.

He curls an arm around her neck, pushing back so he’s almost back on the bed but so his head still rests on her shoulder. He wants to pull her inside of himself, to remake them as one so she never feels too far from him.

Her shivering eases first. Jean, light-headed and damp-cheeked, flops back onto the bed and lets her go when she moves away. It’s a rending in his chest when she steps out of his reach. He wants her to stay close, to lie by him so they can whisper to one another, even while knowing that he’s not sure either of them could probably bear what they would say to each other.

It’s so impossibly easy for them to hurt one another. But then, Jean has always been too good at hurting himself.


	3. concolor

They’re excused from their late afternoon classes on game day to give them time to eat beforehand and then start their warm up. It’s relief to get away from the other students and their mugging of anyone wearing a team jersey.

Like Edgar Allen, USC has posters of their players everywhere, and Jean can’t look at his own without wincing. He looks precisely like a Raven in red and gold, nothing at all like Jeremy’s grinning portrait. Felicienne wouldn’t do anything for the photographers, so she’s standing still, her huge eyes staring out of the picture. Jeremy’s daemon is mid-roar.

In the locker room, Jean feels like a stone amidst the riotous Trojans and their nerves, daemons fluttering helplessly everywhere he looks. It’s ridiculous, how wound up they are over a game they’re basically set to win. Despite the time Jean’s spent away from the court, he isn’t nervous. This is the first time he’s felt calm in months now.

It’s the purpose. Unlike every other waking moment where it’s becoming impossible not to consider his grey and hazy future, here and now he only has one goal: to win.

“Jean,” Alvarez says. She’s nearly sparking with energy, her grin wicked. If she’s nervous, he can’t read it from her. Micah is much more still than usual on her shoulder. “You ready?”

“I’m ready,” he replies, one hand to Felicienne’s head.

 

* * *

 

Jeremy loves the court.

He’s so grateful to have a life where he can spend almost every day on it, but there’s something particularly special about it on game day. It doesn’t get any better than walking onto the court at home for the first game of the season – except for, Jeremy presumes, winning the championship finals. He hasn’t got to experience that one.

Not yet. He has a good feeling about this year.

The Trojans flood down to the court as one, warmed up and ready in the wake of the first buzzer. Jeremy, as always, is in the lead, though in this particular instance it’s because of Salome and not him.

There are a few disadvantages to having a daemon who weighs three hundred pounds, beginning with transport – she doesn’t exactly fit in a standard car seat – and ending with Salome having to jam herself into the court cages with the other Trojan daemons.

According to Class I rules, daemons should be fully contained in the cages even during practices. The rules are there for a reason – back in the 60s and 70s there was a spate of deaths amongst athletes across multiple sports from daemon crush injuries, which means cages are commonplace amongst most team sport codes. Jeremy understands why, but that doesn’t mean he likes it. Nor does it mean that Salome does.

They go first to allow her the pick of the space as the biggest daemon on the team. She doesn’t need his help to leap inside, but Jeremy rests a quick hand against her shoulder anyway. She turns to bunt her head into his fingers, her whiskers tickling his palm.

“Go well,” she murmurs softly, and then Jeremy moves out of the way for his strikers and their daemons behind him.

There’s always the pull in his core when he takes the first step apart. As athletes they’re better than most at putting distance between their bodies and their daemons, but that doesn’t mean Jeremy doesn’t feel it every time the bond stretches.

He trained almost as hard on this as he did on perfecting his aim. All his talent for Exy would have meant nothing at all if he couldn’t score a goal just because the goal was too far from his daemon. It had hurt, savage enough to steal his breath, but they’d done it.

It’s amazing, what you can do with the drive to win.

The cages clang shut behind the Trojans as they line up at the door. Jeremy takes his spot third in the line, shifting from foot to foot. Behind him is Alvarez, her enthusiasm infectious. Behind _her_ is Jean, quiet and steady in his new uniform. There’s always a moment of dissonance in seeing them without their daemons in arm’s reach, but it passes.

Overhead, the announcer calls their strikers onto the court. Jeremy’s name is third, and the crowd screams for him. It seems that they’ve recovered their love for him now in the wake of the disappointing end to last season. He might be smirking a little as he raises his racquet in a wave to them, taking his place for the start.

Alvarez is called next, and Jean after. Jeremy, listening to the crowd in the wake of their cheering for Alvarez, pauses when there’s a moment of quiet.

There’s the raucous ding of a metal bell, and then a crash as hundreds of pairs of feet lift in the stands and crash back down.

Jeremy has heard that one before. That’s a Raven trick. His head jerks to the crowd to look for the culprits just as part of the wall of people dressed in blue and red for their opposition jump again. The noise of it is thunderous.

He looks to Jean next. If they were expecting an obvious reaction there isn’t one. Jean is walking across the court like he’s gone deaf. He takes his place with a steady stance, resting the end of his racquet on the floor. It makes him look like a knight from an old portrait.

Jeremy can’t see Jean’s expression from here, but he doubts it’s anything other than still.

Laila comes on last for the Trojans, the din of the away crowd fading into cheers as the announcer starts calling the Cardinals on. She sweeps close to Jean on her way to goal and says something to him that earns her a split-second of Jean’s attention, by the tilting of his head. She doesn’t give him time to reply, going straight to the goal box with her racquet slung over her shoulder.

Alvarez taps a rapid rhythm on the floor with her racquet. “Ready, Moreau?”

“Ready,” Jean replies without a pause, his voice carrying.

“Kill ‘em,” Laila calls from behind them both, like they don’t have a strategy they need to stick to which involves them conserving their energy. Her voice is hot enough that Jeremy doesn’t say anything.

Fitness will get them through most of this game, but it’ll be determination that will win it for them.

The Cardinals won first serve, so their dealer is the one with the ball. As the clock ticks down the last few seconds to start, Jeremy shifts his weight lower.

The buzzer goes. He moves.

The Cardinal dealer looks to his strikers, who are already bolting towards the Trojan goal. Jeremy’s own strikers are running in the opposite direction, but he’s watching the dealer, watching the opposition strikers, knowing Alvarez and Jean are already in position to slow those strikers down.

All of that means that when he does move it’s sideways instead of forwards, jumping to intercept the dealer’s throw to their own striker and snatching it out of the air. Then he’s in clear space to take his ten steps and throw the ball down the court to Alex before chasing it.

The Trojans have gotten faster. Alex throws to Simon who throws to Jeremy who is almost in the goal, he aims, and then the goal lights up red.

They’re forty-five seconds into the half. The stands are going wild as Alex slaps him on the back, yelling something indecipherable in his ear.

A good start. Jeremy, grinning, waves to the crowd.

 

* * *

 

The Cardinals are clearly shaken at being scored on so quickly. They’re not a great team, but there are worse ones. They’ve beaten the Trojans before at least once. The difference now is in how much the Trojans have improved, not in their own performance.

They’re going to lose. But, after Jeremy scores the first goal, it becomes clear that they’re not going to go down without a fight. _Literally._

The Trojans are known for being difficult to provoke – their no-red-cards record is legend, and for good reason - so it’s not surprising that they immediately start to pick on Jean as the weakest link. He’s never held back from a fight in his life, not because of a short temper but because that’s what was always expected from him. Jean might have been surprised that none of the Trojans warned him off fighting, but he’s not surprised to be considered a weak point.

It’s a little bit funny, though. He’s six-four and, in this moment, the most controlled he’s been in months. They’re going to get a reaction out of Jeremy before they get anything from him.

The unfunny part is how the Cardinal strikers and dealer are focussing on him to try and get past to their goal. They’re not good enough to really stretch his ability, but he knows that the more they push, the more worn out he’ll get, and the less he’ll be able to offer towards end of the game when it matters most.

He’s wondered on and off whether he would somehow feel passive about playing the same way he has about his allegiance to any one team. He shouldn’t have worried. Out here under the lights his heart is thrashing in his chest, everything cut down to the razor-sharp focus adrenaline lends.

None of this should matter to him, after everything. It still does though.

He knows the players around him are talking, but most of it is meaningless buzzing in his ears. He’s never been the kind to talk shit while playing and he’s used to ignoring it as a waste of breath. What he is aware of is that the Trojans aren’t quite as good as he is at pretending it isn’t happening.

“Stay on your side,” he raps out to Alvarez after they’ve cleared the ball away to the other end again.

“Those assholes,” Alvarez snarls, instead of doing what Jean says.

“Ignore it,” he says, pushing her away with the end of his racquet. “Isn’t that the Trojan rule?”

“The Trojan rule is not to break the rules,” Alvarez says, which isn’t an agreement. She makes her meaning clear when she slams one of the Cardinal strikers into the wall with the full weight of her body a second after he throws the ball towards his partner. She’s not breaking any rules, but the reaction from the crowd is riotous.

“Whoops,” she chirps, brushing herself off. Laila has already cleared the ball out again.

“Bitch,” the striker says as he pushes himself up. His jersey says ‘Parker’, and Jean knows his stats and nothing else about him. “I thought you guys were meant to be all about fairness.” He looks straight at Jean. “Maybe it’s the Raven.”

Alvarez looks Jean in the eye and then turns away, spinning her racquet. Her silence is probably disappointing, and it should stay like that for this asshole.

And it probably would, if not for Jeremy laughing and saying, “Is that the best you’ve got?”

He’s less the golden captain out here than he is on television, in all those interviews where he smiles so broadly. His dark eyes are intense, the curve of his mouth sharper. All leader, much less sweetness and light.

A normal offensive dealer would be down the other end, having chased the ball down with their strikers, rather than standing here looking ridiculously relaxed for such a fast-paced game. However, Jeremy is a little bit unique. Even before he made captain, he was a player of interest to the Ravens – and the public in general, by the number of articles on him – because of his style of play. He could have been a striker but chose dealer because he likes where it puts him on the court when it comes to leading his team. He’s as good offensively as defensively, a complete everyman, which has meant he’s spent quite a bit of time tonight shoring Jean up against the Cardinal dealer as well as Jean’s striker mark.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” Jeremy goes on, with a casual shrug. “Even your fans are cheering for the wrong team.”

To bring that point home, the bell goes in the background, and the crashing of feet comes again through the Plexiglass. It’s the first time it’s been anything but background noise to Jean. His heart doesn’t even skip a beat.

He knows an attempt at frightening him when he hears it. He’s just a lot harder to scare than people assume.

Parker opens his mouth but no words come out. Jeremy pats him on the shoulder in a move so condescending that he should get punched just for trying it, and says, “Don’t start complaining yet. We’re barely getting started.”

 

* * *

 

They win.

Jean spends the last of the game on the bench with Felicienne at his feet, the backliner sub Will out in his place with Alvarez. That means he and the others outside the inner court watch the Trojans score two more points in the last five minutes, taking their total score to fourteen against the Cardinals’ miserly five.

When the final buzzer goes off, the subs and daemons go out onto the court to shake hands. Several people try to crush Jean’s fingers but he stares them down and ignores the bruised ache in hands that hardly need more damage than what they’ve already had. After the second person Felicienne starts growling, so low it’s barely a suggestion of a sound, and then no one wants to shake Jean’s hand at all. That’s fine by him.

“Good work,” Jeremy says, patting Jean on the back as he buzzes by. He’s everywhere at once, with a few words for each of his players. “Go, if she needs to.”

He means Felicienne, who is stiff-coated. She’s never liked being on the court, particularly when it’s full of people.

“It’s fine,” Jean says brusquely. He’s tired of Jeremy’s attempts at making things easier on him, wants to peel them all back and find what’s underneath, what makes Jeremy tick and especially what makes him look at Jean like he actually cares. Jean can’t trust that. He wants to find out how deep it goes.

Someone throws an arm around his shoulders. “Well done for not punching anyone.”

It’s Alvarez, of course, Michal skittering at her heels with his tail in the air. Jean says, “I’m not the short-tempered one here. Maybe I should be congratulating you.”

“Maybe,” Alvarez says. “Hey. You didn’t die playing two-thirds of a game, either. Maybe you should be _thanking_ me instead.”

“I don’t think so,” Jean replies. It’s too early for him to be able to attribute his staying power to an increase in fitness rather than just blind determination to not slow down.

Alvarez groans. “God, I can hear you debriefing and planning in your head. We just won, can’t you relax for five whole minutes? Even ten?”

“It’s the first game of the season. Don’t you think it’s too early to get complacent?”

“Complacent?” Alvarez sputters. “ _Hello_ , we just _destroyed_ them.”

She says that loudly enough that several of the Cardinals hear and glare at her. She smiles back and waves with the arm that isn’t over Jean’s shoulders.

“You know it’s true,” she continues, slightly more quietly. Very slightly.

“You won’t beat the Ravens playing like this,” Jean says, unthinking. They both pause for a split second, with the sense memory of the crowd stomping like Raven fans at the sight of Jean in their heads.

“We,” Alvarez says, and then stops.

“What?”

“ _We_ won’t beat the Ravens playing like this. You’re a Trojan now. Remember?”

Jean pauses for a moment too long, and then, to cover that up, says, “It’s hard to forget when I’m wearing all this yellow.”

Predictably, Alvarez huffs. “Excuse you, it’s _gold_. Do your eyes even work?”

“My eyes are better than yours. You nearly missed that shot from Parker just before half time.”

“Okay, A, you’re being a dick, and B, the operative word is ‘nearly’, and I’d love to see you do better. My sight isn’t bad enough that I missed you getting slow before Coach pulled you off.”

She has a point. Jean shrugs, which has the added bonus of getting Alvarez’s arm off of him. He didn’t mind it as much as he thought he would, though.

“Good work, Alvarez, Moreau,” Coach Rhemann says, startling Jean. He’s been distracted enough that he hasn’t realised they’ve been drifting from the gathering of the players in the centre of the court towards the door. Jean steps over the threshold into the stadium, and suddenly the sounds of the crowd increase tenfold. It’s like stepping into another world.

“Go shower,” Alvarez says. There’s intention in her expression, which says she meant to usher Jean away from the crowd entirely. There’s no lie in her smile, though, and no condescension or pity either.

Jean should feel like he’s being managed right now, prickly the same way he did when Jeremy suggested he leave. He isn’t sure why he doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

True to his word, Jeremy has been knocking at Jean’s door each evening. He’s not rude about it – just raps twice on the doorframe, waits for a moment, and then goes – but so Jean hasn’t acknowledged it to either come with him or tell him to stay the hell away. So Jeremy, stubborn as ever, has kept going.

All that means is that he jumps when he knocks and Jean actually answers the door. His expectation instantly changes to predicting the exact way Jean is going to tell him to get lost, and therefore he’s surprised again when Jean steps out of his room, holding the door open for Felicienne.

He looks at Jeremy, one eyebrow quirked. His expression says, _well?_

Thankfully, Jeremy is pretty good at making plays on the fly. He grins. “You’re going to love dining hall food.”

“I highly doubt that,” Jean replies. With his accent and the precision with which he talks, he sounds like he comes from another planet. One where they have much better diction than Earth.

He falls into step with Jeremy on the way down the hall, Felicienne at his heels. Salome walks just ahead of them, her tail swinging lackadaisically in time with her steps. She’s been abnormally quiet about Jeremy’s new door-knocking habit since he started it up, but Jeremy can already nearly hear the dry comments she’ll make about this later.

Presuming, of course, that no one is savaged by a daemon during dinner. Looking at Felicienne now, it’s hard to imagine, but she’s surprised Jeremy before.

Maybe ‘surprised’ isn’t the right word. Having watched her after the game the other night, with her staring coat and watchful eyes, Jeremy is starting to find her a little more predictable.

She’s more telling than Jean in a lot of respects. Usually Jeremy refrains from watching daemons in the cages while he’s on the bench, mostly because it seems a little impolite during the vulnerable moments when humans and daemons are separated. However, he wants to understand Jean badly enough that he caught himself looking at her a few times during the game. She paced in the tight space the other daemons afforded her, all muscle and threat, her big tail switching when she paused. She watched Jean the entire time, which isn’t unusual, but there’d been an intensity in her that basically screamed of protectiveness.

Maybe to other people it looks like senseless violence. Jeremy, for whom protectiveness is a first language, knows the truth of it when he sees it. Or at least he thinks he does.

He’s maybe been quieter than usual, but Jean seems unbothered by the lack of conversation. His expression gets…less as they approach the dining hall, but he doesn’t look frightened and Felicienne is calm.

Inside, it’s not too busy, the main body of students who use it having eaten earlier than the Exy players with their later practices. Jeremy picks what he wants with Jean in the queue behind him following his lead, and then he selects a table for them out of the main thoroughfare.

Jean sits across from him, Felicienne folding herself elegantly under his chair. Salome tries to fit under the table, and mostly only succeeds in avoiding blocking the entire path.

“Thoughts about the game?” Jeremy asks almost as soon as his ass touches the seat.

Jean has a lot of thoughts about the game, though it takes a little work on Jeremy’s point to coax them out of him. He thinks very differently to Jeremy, and it’s not explained by the difference in their positions but the most basic differences in how their minds work. Jean’s thoughts are black or white, good or bad, faultless or in need of work. Jeremy is more capable of seeing the potential in a mistake made, but it’s interesting to look at the issues in the team from such a confronting mindset for a moment.

“And your fitness?” Jeremy asks eventually. They’ve so far steered clear of directly discussing one another, out of something perhaps approaching tact, but that was never going to last.

“Isn’t good enough,” Jean replies. “But you already knew that.”

Jeremy looks at him for a moment. Jean weathers it.

“So what are we going to do about it?” Jeremy asks eventually.

It shouldn’t be so satisfying to see the shift in Jean’s expression that signifies surprise. “I am training on my own time with Alvarez or without her. Running, anaerobic drills.”

“I said ‘we’.”

“I don’t expect the entire team to train on an issue only one player has,” Jean says.

“But you’re happy to talk drills for the entire team based on the fact that Will’s physicality needs work.”

“It’s not just him.”

“And it’s not just you, either. We’re a team.”

Now Jean is looking at Jeremy with a trace of wariness.

“Just say ‘okay’,” Jeremy recommends. “There are fitness exercises I’m already planning to recommend to Coach Rhemann going forwards. This is your chance to share your expertise.”

“I don’t have expertise.”

“You’re one of the best players in the game,” Jeremy says, and watches him take that like a blow. “I recognise captaincy and playing are two very different skills, but you’ve done as many drills as I have, probably more. Is it so difficult to believe I might think you have something worthwhile to say?”

“No,” Jean says after a moment.

“You’re insightful,” Jeremy says. “A leader. It’s worth my time to listen to you. And also, we’re a team. It’s not your job to do all your training alone to catch up. It’s my job to make sure you’re okay, that you’re achieving the best you can.”

“What’s your point?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jeremy holds up two fingers. “It’s twofold. I want to hear what you have to say. And I don’t want you to hold back on your own struggles with the idea that I don’t want to help you. Okay?”

Jean is staring at him, pale eyes intense. The moment drags. Then he says, “Fine.”

“Fine,” Jeremy says. He grins. “Good. You finished?”

Both their plates are clean, and Jean nods sharply in reply. They take their trays up together, daemons in tow. Jeremy casts Felicienne a glance and finds her just the same as she was before, still and quiet.

“That wasn’t so bad, right?” Jeremy asks cheerfully once they make it outside.

“No,” Jean agrees. There’s something in his tone that means Jeremy has to look at him, but it still takes him a moment to identify it as amusement.

Jeremy squints at him. After a moment of this, Jean says, “If you want to hear about my difficulties, it might be easier to refrain from assigning me ones I don’t have first.”

“Ah,” Jeremy says.

“You assumed,” Jean says.

“That was dangerous of me.”

“Not as dangerous as you seem to think I am.”

“Jean,” Jeremy says. His voice is weighty. “It’s not about you being dangerous. Either of you. It’s about you both being comfortable.”

“Assumptions make me uncomfortable. I’ve lived with some of them for too long.”

“Okay.” Jeremy rubs his cheek. “How uncomfortable does asking you make you?”

“Less,” Jean replies. That shouldn’t be that surprising to Jeremy, considering. Jean’s nature doesn’t have room for subterfuge, only for forthrightness.

Well, it’s not the first time Jeremy has had to go against his own nature to be a better captain. He shrugs. “Okay. Next time, I’ll ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading xx


	4. tigris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN 84 YEARS

In the wake of the first game of the season, their first practice is dedicated to anaerobic training – shuttles and suicides until at least one person goes green and has to be excused. The second is all about physicality. They match off with an opposing player and practice legally hitting each other. The Trojans are enthusiastic, and it doesn’t serve them quite so well for these kinds of exercises – a lot of them are going to be black and blue tomorrow.

“This is your fault,” Harry, one of the strikers, tells Jean point-blank as they walk off of the court at the end of it. “I don’t know how or why, but I know it is.”

“It’s not his fault you’re five-six and flinch every time a backliner looks at you,” Alvarez says. “Take it up with Coach if you’re gonna bitch.”

Harry might be brave enough to talk to Jean, but he quavers in the face of the both of them and leaves. Alvarez slides into his place at Jean’s side.

“He’s not wrong,” Jean tells her, because these are exercises that he mentioned to Jeremy and are now being implemented in full force thanks to Jeremy’s enthusiasm.

“I know that,” Alvarez replies. “But still. Don’t let the underclassmen pick on you now that they realise you’re not going to eat them.”

“I’m not…what?”

Alvarez pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Hey, are you coming to the party on Saturday?”

“No,” Jean says, more as a pre-emptive tactic than anything seeing as he doesn’t know about any party this weekend. Of course, it doesn’t work.

“Yes you are,” Alvarez replies, unfazed. “I’ll pick you guys up on my way past. It’ll be fun!”

She doesn’t give Jean a chance to protest, veering off into the girl’s locker rooms with Michal bouncing along behind her. Felicienne, who has joined Jean silently, watches them go and then glances at Jean with her big moon eyes.

She’s been different these past few days. Still silent but more in tune with Jean, and less like a phantom limb.

Jean strokes a hand down her back and then goes into the locker room to change out.

Like he does every evening, Jeremy knocks at Jean’s door later and waits until they emerge. Jean expected Jeremy to stop in the wake of their first meal together, but the next night he was there again with his daemon at his side. Jean had expected himself to stop responding, but instead he’s been going regularly with Jeremy like Jeremy has inserted himself in Jean’s schedule and is now stuck there.

Routine has always run his life – his nights, and his sixteen-hour days – for as long as he can remember. A different man might have rebelled against the concept while enjoying all these new freedoms, but Jean doesn’t think he can do that. He thinks that without structure he might fall to pieces.

It’s stranger to be carrying out these routines with Trojans, but he’s getting used to them, too.

“So, what did you think of practice today?” The words practically bubble out of Jeremy in his eagerness as they walk to the dining hall together.

“I thought they served their purpose,” Jean replies sedately. It’s not that he’s unsatisfied, necessarily. It’s more that he has the patience to recognise that the kind of changes Jeremy is looking for take time.

Jeremy looks pleased by this response anyway. “Good.”

He seems to be in a good mood today, humming to himself as he fills his plate. Jean and Felicienne follow on behind him and his lioness, putting food on his own tray. Jean has always eaten for fuel, not for taste, and a year ago he couldn’t have told anyone about a single meal he considered long enough to have an opinion on. Now, he at least knows he likes pasta. Also, spicy foods are good. He has, according to Laila, very boring taste when it comes to fruit because he favours apples and pears.

“Sara says you’re coming to the party this weekend,” Jeremy says once they’re sitting across from one another. He always seems to pick a table by the wall, and he always takes the seat with his back facing the room. Jean hasn’t worked out yet whether that’s intentional or not.

“I’m not,” Jean replies.

Jeremy tilts his head. “You should. It’ll be fun.”

That’s exactly what Alvarez says, and Jean doesn’t believe Jeremy any more than he does her.

“Also, you’re going to have a hard time avoiding it,” Jeremy comments. “It’s happening in the dorm.”

“My room has a door.”

“True,” Jeremy says. “But once the smell of rum and the sounds of top 40 pop reach you under it, you won’t be able to resist.”

He does change the subject after that, discussing his classes and their teammates. He’s good at asking questions so it’s not a one-sided conversation, to the point where Jean is always surprised by how much he’s talked by the time he makes it back to his room.

It’s – probably a good thing. Renee seems to think so, certainly.

They’re nearly finished eating when a group of people who are almost certainly freshmen start to hover near them. Jean swears he was never that young. He’s certainly sure he’s never been that awkward.

It’s pretty clear, by the shuffling and muttering and elbowing, what they want. A word with the favoured Captain, maybe a photo, and perhaps a look at the Jean, with all his mysteries.

Jean doesn’t like to be approached, ever. The bonus of having Jeremy here – and the reason Jean ever agreed to Jeremy’s ludicrous attempt at befriending him via eating together – is that Jeremy is very, very good at taking up all the attention of anyone who turns up at their table to chat.

“Hi,” one of them says, a blonde who appears to be wearing a t-shirt with a glittery cupcake on the front unironically, her songbird daemon perched on her shoulder. Jean tries to remind himself she’s only three years younger than him and fails. “Well done for the game last week! It was amazing.”

“Thank you,” Jeremy says, his expression instantly shifting from normal to his megawatt press grin. It’s not that it’s not genuine, because Jean suspects it mostly is, but it’s still a little strange to see the change happen so fast. “Are you all freshmen?”

As though the answer isn’t patently obvious, they giggle and tell him yes, they’re all new here, but they _love_ USC and are _so_ happy they chose it. Jean attempts to meld into the background while they make small talk on the other side of the table.

He’s a little surprised when Felicienne shifts from her position against behind his chair to sit at his side, her cheek rasping against his jeans for a second. He strokes her lightly, ignoring the glances her movement has earned them.

People have always been interested in her, the same way they’re interested in him – like they want to tear her apart and crack any stoicism through, to unravel all the inner workings of her mind. She doesn’t like it any more than he does.

“Good luck for this week,” one says after they’ve exhausted their knowledge of Exy and probably the school. “I hope you guys win again!”

“We’ll do our best,” Jeremy says. “Right, Jean?”

“Right,” Jean replies. It’s not until he speaks – normally, of course – that he realises exactly how chirpy Jeremy’s voice has become right now. The girls don’t laugh, but smile at him instead, all of them pink-faced as they shuffle away.

“Children,” Jean mutters, and hears a huff from the other side of the table that he doesn’t think came from Jeremy.

“They think you’re hot,” Jeremy tells him, grinning. “It’s the aloofness.”

“I doubt that,” Jean replies. It’s not that he doesn’t think he’s attractive – he’s not an idiot – but even if that’s part of the intrigue, it’s certainly not all of it. “People like that like to associate with power.”

“They’re teenagers, Jean. They want hot boys – and girls – to be nice to them.” Apparently using the same word he just used to describe Jean for himself makes Jeremy blush. “It’s not that hard to play along for a while.”

“And when they want to tell you that they were disappointed about last year?”

Jeremy shrugs. “It’s nothing people haven’t said before.”

“I don’t know how you can be so circumspect about it.”

“It’s different for me than it is for you,” Jeremy says. He meets Jean’s eyes head on for a moment. “Obviously. They’re curious about you – everyone is. With me, it’s all out there.”

“I highly doubt that,” Jean says.

“Maybe. But I figure if I’m open about most things, people are less likely to want to dig. I made it into a game, guessing what people are going to say.”

“A game?”

“We have a tally,” Jeremy says, stroking his daemon’s head. “If they say negative stuff enough times I buy myself some chocolate. I figure it’s good practice for going pro.”

“You’re that sure you’re going to be famous?”

Jeremy shrugs, his mouth curving into something which is more smirk than smile. “Well, I guess we never know.”

“Sure,” Jean says. “So, that’s the prime subject of conversation between you two? What questions you’re going to get from random strangers?”

He regrets asking that straight away. It’s not a topic he should -

“Of course,” Jeremy says. “Why, what do you two talk about?”

“She doesn’t talk,” Jean says, and stands abruptly. “Are you finished?”

“Uh,” Jeremy pauses to look down at his plate, “Yes?”

Jean picks up his tray and pauses for just long enough to Jeremy to struggle to his feet and do the same. He nearly trips over his daemon in the process, leaning against her as he rebalances himself.

Jean has never considered telling anyone about Felicienne. On the other hand, he’s also never considered lying about it. It seems typical that Jeremy Knox would stumble directly into that contradiction without meaning to.

They dump their trays off one after the other and then leave the hall together. Jean keeps feeling Jeremy’s eyes on him but he doesn’t look back. Instead he looks at Felicienne, who is for once walking ahead of him, her long tail swinging back and forth. She looks relaxed – untouchable. It’s worse than anything else would be, probably.

“I’m sorry, I just,” Jeremy rushes out once they’re outside, as though he’s been holding the words in. “She doesn’t talk?”

“Not anymore,” Jean replies evenly.

“Okay,” Jeremy says, because he tries hard to be accepting of everything. They keep walking in silence, and Jean focuses on the feel of the pavement under his feet.

“You know, uh, my daemon didn’t talk to me for a while once too,” Jeremy volunteers after a while. For some reason when Jean tosses him a look he’s blushing red and won’t meet Jean’s eyes. “I was…confused about something. Something personal. Or maybe it was more than I knew what the answer was but I didn’t really want to believe it. Her giving me the silent treatment was the push that I needed to realise what I needed to do.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Jean tells him bluntly.

“I just mean…maybe she’s trying to help you?” Jeremy attempts.

Jean actually thinks Felicienne is trying to punish him, but there’s no way he’s going to tell Jeremy that. “How long did she stop speaking to you for?”

Jeremy looks at his daemon, considering, and then says, “Six weeks?” She nods her big head to confirm it.

“And what was this big, dark secret you were so worried over?” Jean asks, his voice going sharp. He knows he shouldn’t ask, and it’s not that he really wants to know, but all of a sudden – _six_ _weeks_ , when Jean can hardly remember the sound of Felicienne’s voice – he wants to hurt Jeremy.

He doesn’t quite get his wish. Jeremy looks uncomfortable for a moment, but not pained. He shrugs, as if to himself, and says, “I was in love with someone, but I didn’t believe I could be. Actually, I didn’t _want_ to believe it.”

“It’s not the same,” Jean says. “You have no idea.”

Jeremy looks chastised. “Yeah, of course.”

“Of course?”

“I just meant,” Jeremy tries, and then rubs his face. “Wow, this really isn’t coming out well.”

Abruptly, Jean feels all the anger drain out of him. Jeremy doesn’t – can’t – know what to say to Jean, but he’s trying. That’s better than most other people have ever done by Jean.

The thing is – Jean is glad that Jeremy doesn’t get it. He wouldn’t wish his past on anyone, let alone the person who kneeled in front of Felicienne and asked her permission to get in arm’s reach of Jean. And even the little kernel of bitterness in Jean that wants to inflict suffering on everyone around him is a niggle at the back of his mind.

Jean isn’t a creature of violence by nature: he just grew up with them.

“I’m sorry,” Jeremy says. “I shouldn’t have, you know. Opened my big mouth.”

“It’s fine,” Jean says, because Jeremy’s genuine apology and his downcast eyes make him uncomfortable.

“No, it isn’t,” Jeremy replies. “I just want to help. So if there’s any way I can help, will you tell me?”

Well, Jean _did_ tell him to ask. He clears his throat and then says, “I’ll try.”

Jeremy’s expression turns to a grin so fast Jean blinks. “Thanks Jean.”

 

* * *

 

Jeremy is right about something. It’s impossible to ignore the party, mostly because Alvarez won’t leave Jean alone.

They won their Friday night game too, and outside the celebrations are wild. Two in a row is a good start, which is exactly what Jeremy had told the press after the game, his helmet still under his arm.

Jean played well. There were no dirty tricks aimed at him, just skill, and he enjoyed testing himself against that in an unfamiliar way. He  _liked_ it.

Felicienne paces in front of the door, her tail swishing idly. It’s a little like watching a caged animal in a zoo. Jean, who is sitting on his bed attempting to read over the promised thunderous pop music, watches her and wonders.

The absent contemplation turns to frustration too fast, and it’s Jeremy Knox’s fault. The next time there’s a knock at the door, he gets up and opens it.

“Hey!” Alvarez says, shoving a solo cup full of liquid into his hand. “Don’t drink that in the hall, it’s against the rules.”

Jean puts the cup down inside his door and turns back to Felicienne, but she’s already at his feet as though she was waiting for him to do this. Maybe she was. Jean can’t read her and he can’t predict himself anymore either. He should probably save his energy rather than keep rehashing that, at this point.

He follows Alvarez down the hall, into a room full of Exy players, as well as people Jean has never seen before. He figures they’re mostly other athletes, and he’s used to being recognised by people he’s never met at this point. He ignores them, pausing at Alvarez’s side where she’s joined Laila.

“Jean,” Laila says, “Thank god.”

Jean shoots her a look that makes her laugh. “What, that’s not the response you expected? You might say the same if _your_ girlfriend was obsessed with making sure someone was socialising.”

There are plenty of things Jean could get offended about there, but, well. He knows Alvarez at this point.

Alvarez turns back from whoever she’s been talking to on Laila’s other side and looks Jean up and down before squawking, “Your drink!”

“Whoops,” Jean says, deadpan.

Alvarez laughs, and then launches herself at him for a hug. “I’m really glad you’re here!”

Jean doesn’t hug her back, just kind of steadies her with one hand. That in no way makes her shorten the embrace, though it does make Laila laugh.

“I live here,” Jean reminds her when she finally lets go of him.

“I’m really glad you’re not hiding in your room being antisocial,” Alvarez corrects herself, petting him on the shoulder. “Laila, don’t let him leave.”

Laila is clearly the more sober one here. She says, “What, am I meant to handcuff myself to him?”

“Yeah!” Alvarez says. “Okay, I’m gonna-”

Just like that, she’s gone, her daemon leaping along at her feet. Laila watches her go, still smirking, and then says to Jean, “She’s an active drunk. She always comes back eventually. Well, mostly.”

She has her daemon curled into her arms. He’s an oversized cat, though he might be a normal size really – Jean hasn’t seen many real cats in his life. His fur is reddish swirls, and his eyes are bright green. He’s similar in a way to Jeremy’s daemon, which is unusual seeing as she and Jeremy seem different in almost every way.

“She is persistent,” Jean says, meaning Alvarez.

“Yes,” Laila replies. “It’s the trait that got us together, but it’s also pretty high up on the list of reasons we might break up.”

Jean tilts his head. “You have a list?”

She grins. “Yeah. Like pros and cons. As long as the list of reasons we should stay together is longer than the list of reasons we should break up, we’ll stick together.”

“You two seem…solid.” Jean doesn’t know why he says it. The closest he’s been to a conventional relationship is Kevin and Thea, and that’s hardly a good example of one.

“We’re also barely in our twenties. Stuff that happens now isn’t forever. Sometimes that’s shitty, but sometimes it’s for the best.”

“Is this a life lesson?” Jean has had kind of shit happen to him between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, never mind before then, and he can’t imagine a day where he doesn’t carry all that.

“As if I would try and give you one of those,” she says. Then she pats him on the cheek. She’s really short, and has to stretch up a long way to do it, jostling her daemon who is curled into the crook of her other arm. That only adds to the condescension. “You’re doing pretty good, Jean Moreau.”

Jean blinks. “What?”

“You heard me,” she says, with a wink. “Go have fun. I need to find the potential love of my life.”

She whisks herself way in a cloud of unfamiliar perfume, leaving Jean and Felicienne alone in the crowd. Jean looks around himself and then decides to pick another room.

Some of the second-line backliners have rooms just down the hall, so he goes in that direction. Jean doesn’t mind Will, and at least defence is less…offensive than some members of the Trojan offense. Will’s door is also open, which means it’s much less likely he’s about to walk in on any of his teammates fucking.

Back in the Nest the Ravens might have partied, but Riko hated to lose control and Jean would never have loosened the reins while Riko maintained his sobriety. Jean has been to nightclubs before, has always had an affinity for low lights and music so loud he can’t think about anything else, but he kind of likes the Trojan version of a dorm party. Less intrigue, more honesty, probably a similar amount of sneaking into someone’s bed, and almost no chance of receiving an intentional injury.

Will isn’t in his own room, but Jeremy is. Jean is familiar with the sound of his laugh, and that’s strange because he doesn’t remember recognising anyone just by that before.

He looks up and sees Jean through a gap in the people surrounding him, and grins brightly. Jean wonders if it’s the same hello-you’re-the-press-or-a-fan smile as the other day, but it seems too honest for that. Maybe.

Jean has seen plenty of Jeremy since the other night, but he can’t shake the feeling that Jeremy is holding back. He hasn’t brought up daemons again at all, even in passing, and it’s something of a tell.

“Hey!” Jeremy says, pushing through the crowd towards Jean. His daemon pads along behind him, a contrast to Jeremy’s bright voice with her calm. “Drink?” He shoves one of the cups he’s holding into Jean’s hand without waiting for an answer.

“I don’t,” Jean replies, passing the drink back straight away.

Jeremy blinks at him. “Sorry?”

Jean isn’t sure whether that’s an apology or a request for a repeat. “I don’t drink.”

“Oh no!” Jeremy says, though it’s not clear why. “Sorry, Jean. Let me just…”

He hands the spare cup into the hands of a passing third-liner. “There. Better?”

“It’s not like I’m allergic,” Jean tells him with a curve of humour. He guesses it’s more likely Jeremy is considering a far more horrible reason why Jean doesn’t drink, but whatever.

Again with the blinking. Then Jeremy smiles. “You’re funny.”

“You’re drunk,” Jean says, seeing as they’re stating facts that aren’t entirely obvious but probably should be.

“Probably,” Jeremy says. “It happens sometimes. Not to you, clearly, but to me.”

“Clearly.”

Jeremy’s smile turns downwards for a moment, and he looks accusingly at the cup in his hand. “I shouldn’t let Sara make my drinks. She’s heavy-handed with the vodka.”

“You’ve known her for years.”

“I’m kind of a slow learner.” He shrugs. “Hey, are you having fun? This is good, right?”

“It’s fine,” Jean attempts. He’s aware of Felicienne pressed to his calf like a splinter in the pad of his finger. She’s close, and he’s not sure if it’s out of necessity so she isn’t touched or whether she just wants to be.

“Fine,” Jeremy repeats, like the word tastes bad in his mouth. “Jean, that’s terrible. You should be having fun!”

“Should I?”

“Yes. Wait, what do you find fun?”

“Exy,” Jean says immediately, to Jeremy’s groan. “Reading, sometimes.”

“Oh no,” Jeremy says, and then wraps his arms around Jean’s shoulders in a sloppy hug. Jean doesn’t think he’s been hugged twice in one night in living memory. “You need a…what’s it called. A hobby?”

“Don’t ask me what you’re talking about,” Jean tells him, and Jeremy bubbles out a laugh. He hasn’t let Jean go, and when he looks up to meet Jean’s eyes he pauses for a second. His eyes are dark and heavy-lashed, and he stares back at Jean for a long moment before shaking his head and pulling back.

“Shit,” he says. “I think I need some air.”

That’s how Jean ends up trailing Jeremy down the stairs and out onto the grass strip off to one side of the building. He doesn’t really have a reason, other than a half-formed thought about the consequences of campus police arresting their captain for being drunk and disorderly.

Not that he seems particularly disorderly. He’s even more mild-mannered than ever, humming under his breath and leaning against his daemon’s broad side. She stops walking and sits on her haunches in the middle of the lawn, nearly sending Jeremy sprawling on top of her. He laughs, bell-like in the outdoors quiet.

“Honey,” he says, hugging her around the neck and then turning it into a headlock. She shakes him free and rolls him onto his back, pinning him to the ground with a massive paw and flicking Jean a look over her shoulder like Jeremy should be his problem, not hers.

Jean shrugs at her, dropping a hand to Felicienne a moment later. It feels strange to communicate with another daemon even obliquely while their bond is so ragged and silent.

Jeremy doesn’t look like he’s going to move any time soon. He’s staring up at the sky, his hand spread over his daemon’s paw on his chest. Jean sits cross-legged a few feet away. Felicienne lies down in front of him, and then rolls over and rests her head on his lap.

It’s a gift, a small one. Jean strokes her lightly, thoughtlessly or at least trying to be. They’re crawling back together one day at a time, one step forward and two steps back. That’s what he hopes, anyway.

“You’re right. Were right. The other day.” Jeremy hiccups and goes on like he hasn’t. “I don’t know anything about you. But I want to.”

“Why?” Jean asks. “Curious?”

“Ugh, no,” Jeremy replies, making a face up at the clouds. “That’s for freshmen and the press. I just want to help you.”

“You can’t help me,” Jean tells him. His voice comes out weary.

“I’m good at helping.” He sounds so earnest. “You just have to ask me.”

Jean doesn’t have to ask whether Jeremy would do that for anyone on the team, because he knows he would. He suspects Jeremy would help a perfect stranger, too.

Eagerness – or whatever it is – aside, Jean is not exaggerating. Jeremy can’t help him.

Jeremy sits up abruptly, his daemon’s paw sliding off of his chest to the grass. His hair has gotten spiked at the back from lying down. “Please.”

Jean’s fingers tighten in Felicienne’s fur, but his voice comes out only mildly dry when he says, “What would you recommend? Couples counselling?”

“No.” Jeremy makes a strange twisted face. “But you can, like, talk to me?”

“I didn’t realise you studied therapy.”

“Okay, I know that’s a joke, but I also know you don’t see a therapist – which you could, FYI, because our team psychologist is really good,” Jeremy says. “But anyway, it’s not about me telling you what to do. It’s just about…listening. Me, listening to you. Especially if your daemon won’t-”

He cuts himself off, wincing, but it’s not like he’s wrong. Jean won’t talk to Felicienne when she won’t talk back. He won’t make himself vulnerable like that, not even to her.

“You don’t want to hear it.” Of that Jean is sure.

“That’s not relevant.”

“Aren’t you a martyr, then.”

“It’s more about whether you want to talk about it,” Jeremy says as though Jean hasn’t spoken. His gaze is direct despite his lack of sobriety. “I think that maybe you do.”

Jeremy may or may not be right. Jean doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really think.

“Felicienne,” he says, without breaking Jeremy’s gaze, “Go.”

There’s a long moment, and Felicienne’s weight shifts off of Jean as she stands. Jeremy looks, watching as Felicienne walks away from Jean – first ten metres, then twenty, then more. They’re athletes, so there’s an expectation that their daemons can be further from them from most.

Jean sees the shift in Jeremy’s face when Felicienne goes from a reasonable distance, to well past that. Jeremy’s eyes dart back to Jean and find him unmoved by the separation. Jean can feel Felicienne like a white-cold planet in his orbit, but he isn’t in pain like he should be.

“You’re,” he says. His hand is white-knuckled in his daemon’s scruff, and the colour leached from his cheeks.

“Severed,” Jean says the word they’re both thinking.


	5. nebulosa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all your comments on the last chapter!! <3 This is a somewhat bastardised version of the HDM-verse - those of you that are very familiar with the series will recognise some of the concepts regarding Jean and Felicienne's relationship (especially parts of The Amber Spyglass), but if you don't know it so well it will all become clear during this fic :)
> 
> Chapter warning for recollections of (non-permanent) character death, references to suicidal thoughts, and a very brief mention of sexual assault. Hit me up on tumblr if you want more in-depth warnings!

Jeremy might be sick, and he can’t even blame it on the alcohol.

He can feel Salome’s hot breath over the inside of his wrist, and can _feel_ her, tied so deep they’re basically one. He can’t even imagine -

“Call her back,” he croaks. That might be rude to both Jean and Felicienne, but he can’t think. It has pretty much ruled out any kind of tact.

Jean looks at Felicienne over the distance separating them, his gaze almost clinical. He says, “Felicienne,” again, and reaches out a hand to her.

There’s a moment where she looks back and doesn’t move. Then she comes bounding across the grass to Jean’s side, lithe and graceful. Standing together, it’s like nothing ever happened – they’re the same, eyes the same precise shade, the same careful watchfulness as they wait to see what he’s going to do.

The answer can’t be ‘vomit everywhere’. Jeremy swallows.

“Who did this to you?” Salome asks, her voice so low it’s almost a snarl. Jeremy’s hand clenches in her fur. He can’t think of the last time he heard her speak like that.

Felicienne doesn’t startle, though her focus shifts from Jeremy to Salome. Jean doesn’t look away from Jeremy, mouth twisting.

“Honey,” Jeremy says to Salome, a warning. It’s not the question they should ask because –

“I did,” Jean replies.

Because of that. Because Jeremy wasn’t prepared for that answer, couldn’t be, and certainly couldn’t be ready for the quiet whine Felicienne lets out and the whitening of Jean’s knuckles curling into a fist in response.

“It’s not intercision,” Jeremy says abruptly. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t it?” Jean says it with a note of amusement, ill-fitting.

“You’re still alive.” Intercision is the old, old word for it, from the experiments they did back in the beginning of last century. They covered it in history class – Jeremy remembers it from junior year of high school. No one lived long after, and when they did they weren’t…like Jean.

Jean, unmistakeably alive and unmistakeably wrong in a critical and only just now visible way, looks back at Jeremy. He says, “I suppose so.”

“Honestly, I’m pretty glad you are,” Jeremy tells him, less conversational, more with Salome’s heavy intensity. He also can’t think of the last time they sounded so similar outside of conversations between the two of them.

Jean blinks. He doesn’t ask _are you?_ because he wouldn’t, but Jeremy reads it from his face.

“Yeah,” Jeremy answers him. “It’s…”

 _I did_. Jeremy can’t imagine how Jean could have done this to himself and to Felicienne. Or he doesn’t want to, maybe. He doesn’t want to doubt the truth of it. He just wants to – to make himself clear.

“The girls couldn’t believe it when I said I liked you when you first arrived,” he continues. “They saw what you brought with you to the court. The abrasiveness isn’t super appealing, did you know? The skills, sure, but I wasn’t really joking when I said Laila was considering team-building just for you. Exy is a team sport. Guess the Ravens didn’t teach you that one.”

He’s rambling. He swallows, goes on, “I came to Palmetto all prepared to sign you like it was done deal, but the second I saw you both that went out the window. By all rights I should have made Kevin keep you, because god knows the Foxes are used to working with players on their deathbeds. I nearly turned around to tell him that before we even talked.”

“You hid that well,” Jean notes passively.

Jeremy ignores him. “You said you didn’t care. I didn’t know I could make anything of that – you needing to play but not wanting to. That’s not what I am, or what any of us are in this team.

“But your daemon looked like she had enough fight to take a chunk out of me if I got too close, and under the bruises you looked pretty goddamned alive to me. And maybe the Foxes get all the media coverage for making something out of fucked up kids, but they don’t have the market cornered.”

“Takes one to know one,” Jean says, all challenge.

“Sure,” Jeremy says with a tight shrug. He can own to that. “You’re here because you belong here. I knew that when I talked to you then, and you’ve been proving me right every day since you arrived.”

“And when I stop?” Jean asks. “When I prove you wrong?”

Jeremy’s entire life has been about belief, about righteousness, about recklessness twinned with regard for the rules – about winning. That isn’t going to change any time soon. “As long as you stay alive, it’s not going to happen.”

 

* * *

 

_As long as you stay alive, it’s not going to happen._

_As long as you stay alive._

For Jean that used to be a hard ask.

He slams the bathroom door. Him on one side, Felicienne on the other. He feels it in his bones, but right now it’s just another kind of pain.

The thing about pain is that you never really get used to it. When it goes, you forget what it’s like – that’s human nature – but each time it comes back it’s an assault all over again. And the heavy pain of something that won’t ever heal is worse again, grief-slick and dubiously survivable.

The survivability is his sticking point. He’s good at that, a habit learned down to his smallest component parts, but that doesn’t mean much when he coughs and spatters blood.

Broken rib, probably. It’s not the first time he’s had one. It’s the first time he’s had trauma like that on top of some kind of chest infection that has had him slow and feverish, breathing like there’s water in his lungs.

He knows what that’s like, too. There’s nothing like having an accurate basis for comparison.

He wants to get away. That’s all. Away from his teammates, away from Riko, away from the Master - away from Felicienne and her impossible inseparability from him and the quiet damnation he can’t stop hearing in her whispery voice.

She’s gotten so quiet. He’s always wished she could live inside his chest. It would keep them both safer. He can’t keep himself safe, let alone her.

He goes onto his knees on the bathroom floor like something out of a bad movie, ends up on his face. He can’t breathe like that, belly-down and gasping salt, but it doesn’t really seem to matter. Maybe that’s the fever talking as it boils his brain up. He doesn’t think so – _it doesn’t matter_ has become a familiar pattern of thought to him.

His hands hurt from clawing at the door, except it’s not his hands. His chest hurts from howling his own name. It’s distant right up until Felicienne goes for help, dragging her crumbling, sparking body away from his, and then he’s going under the water in the fading grey of the light and leaving her, leaving her -

Then he wakes up.

The first thing he looks for is Felicienne, lying at the end of his bed in the gap between the wall and his body. She’s watching him, head pillowed on her paws. Jean takes a deep breath in as he looks back, feeling the air flood through him.

He was dead for a couple of minutes in all the ways that matter. The damage to his lungs hasn’t been permanent, but the rift between the two of them is.

He rolls onto his back, breaking Felicienne’s gaze as he does so. He’s in his dorm room, the ceiling a now-familiar colour in the near darkness before dawn. Outside it’s quiet now – people were still partying when he went to bed. In the silence with just his heart in his ears, Felicienne at the same precise distance she has been, Jean feels deeply alone.

Then there’s the press of a whiskered muzzle to his hand on top of the bed covers, fur and lip and teeth. He tenses but doesn’t startle, waiting her out as she slides up the bed alongside his body. She rustles herself down into the blankets to make herself comfy, familiar.

Jean left her behind. He doesn’t know whether she’s holding it against him, or whether she can forgive him. He doesn’t know whether he’s forgivable. It’s all he can do to hold himself together feeling her weight closer to him, feeling the comfort she offers him even now, in silence.

Pain is forgettable except for how scars are triggers, bringing the memories back in ways no one can prepare for, and their bond is scarred through. He rolls his head so his chin presses into her body, eyes closed, and accepts her comfort.

The sun is barely streaking the horizon when there’s a nearly silent knock at his door. Jean debates ignoring it for a short moment before rolling out of bed.

Jeremy is waiting on the other side, hands shoved in his pockets. That’s not very surprising. “Can we talk?”

“Are you going to break up with me?” Jean asks, because he has an inappropriate sense of humour and Jeremy looks more serious than Jean has ever seen him in the harsh light of day.

“Uh, no,” Jeremy says, blinking. “God, I’m too hungover for jokes. Can I come in?”

Jean considers that. Mostly, he considers the dimensions of his room – not particularly generous – and the size of Jeremy’s daemon. And, of course, Felicienne, who doesn’t like being cornered.

Then again, it’s stupidly early, and neither of them is dressed for the outdoors. Jean doesn’t even have a shirt on. He leaves the door open and retreats to the bed where Felicienne is sitting up watching, dropping down beside her.

Jeremy closes the door behind his daemon and takes the desk chair. He leans his elbows on his knees, dropping his chin on one palm. It’s clear he’s trying to look serious, but he loses a little of it because he looks so worse for wear.

They came upstairs after Jean’s little revelation, peeling apart so Jean could go to his room and Jeremy could…go drink more, by the look of him.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Jean prompts after a little while.

“Actually I kind of want to cease to exist,” Jeremy mutters, voice muffled by his palm, but his eyes as he looks at Jean are clear and calm. They’re a pale brown, edging towards gold as the sun from the window makes him squint. Jean hadn’t noticed before.

“I can’t help you with that,” Jean replies, though not unkindly. He’s half expecting Jeremy to tell him that he didn’t mean anything he said last night, that he wants Jean off the team and out of the dorms by today, but he figures there’s no point in fighting it. He learned early on it was better not to waste his energy.

There’s always another team, he supposes. Maybe the Foxes will take pity on him a second time.

That expectation makes it rather more surprising when Jeremy takes a deep breath and then blurts, “I’m bisexual.”

He abruptly goes bright red. “Uh.”

Jean blinks at him, and then tries to readjust his expression to unbothered. It mostly works. “Pardon?”

Jeremy winces. “Uh, yeah – that was what I kind of avoided telling you before. With the whole stupid story about being in love with someone, and _wow_ now I really see how inappropriate that comparison was.”

“I don’t see how this is relevant,” Jean says, because, well, he doesn’t.

“I’m not sure it is,” Jeremy says, and shrugs tightly. “I just wanted to tell you.”

Somehow Jean doubts that can be it. There’s no logical reason Jeremy would blurt that out to Jean before 9 AM on a Sunday if he just wanted to tell Jean, a near stranger, something so deeply personal. Then again -

“You don’t owe me anything,” Jean tells him. “I told you about us because I wanted to.”

Actually, it was to make himself clear. He figures that’s basically the same thing.

“That’s not it,” Jeremy says. “It’s about…being honest.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Then Jean admits, “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that information.”

“Well, uh, preferably you won’t tell everyone,” Jeremy says. “Or the press.”

Jean raises an eyebrow. “That would seem to be obvious.”

“Well, not all straight people seem to think so, so I figure it’s better to say it,” Jeremy says, and then slaps a hand over his mouth.

“I’m not straight,” Jean says, knee-jerk, which is right when Felicienne jumps down from the bed and closer to Jeremy than she’s been since they met in Abby Winfield’s house.

Jeremy, to his credit, doesn’t twitch. Felicienne does instantly earn all of his attention though, which is probably good for the both him and Jean considering the way their conversation was going. Presuming, of course, she isn’t about to do anything crazy.

Jean jerks forward and then restrains himself, sticking to watching her as she stalks around Jeremy and towards his daemon where she’s lying sphinx-like in front of the door. She stays still too, calm as Felicienne walks straight up to her and stops so they’re nose-to-nose.

The two of them look nothing alike so close, despite being of the same family. Felicienne, all silver with her large eyes and silence, is the moon to the lioness’s gold and yellow sun, half her size but twice the threat in her body language.

“Felicienne,” Jean says quietly, because he has no idea what she’s looking for as she stares into the other daemon’s eyes.

“Salome,” Jeremy echoes, though he sounds more thoughtful than concerned. Jean startles, for a moment not sure whom he’s referring to until it clicks.

Salome pushes herself onto her haunches, and then very gently rubs her cheek along Felicienne’s like a real big cat. Jean feels the distant burst of bright-and-warm through their wavering bond, just barely. It figures that she really would feel like the sun, considering.

Felicienne chuffs impatiently – the first sound she’s made other than a growl or a snarl in a while – and turns back to Jean to lay alongside the bed, ignoring Jeremy entirely.

Jean looks from her to Jeremy, in time to see Jeremy shrug a little.

“I thought your daemon’s name was Honey,” Jean admits. He hadn’t even considered an alternative. Americans are strange.

Jeremy laughs, the sound bright and strange as it breaks the hovering stillness. He drops a hand to his daemon and tugs one of her ears affectionately. “Yeah, no. She’s Salome.”

There’s a loud thump from outside the door, and it bursts inward, narrowly missing Salome. She growls a warning, and Alvarez, who just barrelled straight inside, instinctively steps backwards and nearly trips over her own daemon. “Fuck! Don’t eat me!”

“Sara!” Jeremy squawks, lunging from his chair like he’s going to catch her, except for that he’s far too late and Salome is in his way anyway.

“I’m fine,” she says from the hall, before coming in more cautiously this time. “Oh, it’s you Salome. What are you two doing here?”

“How are you awake right now?” Jeremy asks her, scooting backwards to make room for them. Alvarez does at least leave the door open so it doesn’t feel too close in there.

“I’m nineteen,” she replies with a shrug, like that’s an answer. “You guys want to get breakfast with us? Laila will drive.”

“Uh,” Jeremy says, flicking a glance at Salome. “Not us. I’m going back to bed until this afternoon.”

“Yeah, why are _you_ awake?” she asks. “You were as drunk as me last night, and you’re old.”

“Wow, thank you,” Jeremy replies, dry as dust. “I’ll leave you guys to it. C’mon, sweets.”

They do a weird juggle of positions so Jeremy and Salome can get out of the room without anyone being touched or getting too close to Felicienne. Alvarez stares after them for a moment, almost frowning.

“Huh,” she says, and then turns her focus back to Jean. “So?”

“‘So’ what?” Jean asks.

“Breakfast? You coming?” she asks. “You will have to put a shirt on though, stud.”

Jean hadn’t actually realised he and Jeremy just had that entire conversation with him half-dressed. As if it couldn’t have been awkward.

“Give me ten,” he says, pushing himself up. Sara leans in the open doorframe like she doesn’t plan to leave. “Are you hoping for a show?”

She cracks up. “Oh, yeah. You’re just my type, Moreau. C’mon, Michal, lets leave them to get all dressed up.”

She slams the door behind her, and Jean’s beleaguered neighbour Frankie slaps the wall in the aftermath. That’s probably fair – there’s been far too much yelling for this hour of the morning. Jean makes a note to apologise later as he dresses and collects his wallet and phone. He does at least close the door soundlessly as he leaves.

Laila and Alvarez are already in Laila’s car when Jean gets down there, and Jean opens the back door for Felicienne before following her inside.

“Good morning,” Laila says from the front seat. She has her daemon slung around her neck like a stole.

“Morning,” Jean murmurs back. “Good night?”

“Yeah,” Laila replies, right as Alvarez says, “Not as good as yours though, I’m guessing.”

Jean stares at the back of her head for a long moment before saying, “What?”

She throws him a quick glance over her shoulder, her expression impish. “You disappeared with the captain for ages last night, and then I find him in your bedroom this morning. What’s a girl supposed to think?”

It’s such a leap of logic that Jean’s mind can barely comprehend it. He pauses briefly on the fact that they both know Jeremy is bi before disregarding that as obvious. “You’re not a great guesser.”

“You can tell us,” Alvarez wheedles. She pauses when Laila reaches over and squeezes her thigh. “ _Fine_ , I’ll leave it.”

“You don’t believe this, do you?” Jean asks Laila.

Her eyes flicker to his in the rearview mirror and then away. “Honestly, I’m more curious about why he was in your room this morning.”

“We were talking,” Jean says, “Not fucking.”

Alvarez makes a choked noise that might be a laugh. “Oh, god, don’t say that. It sounds weird when you say it.”

“What, fucking?”

“Yes!”

“I can’t believe Laila actually has sex with you,” Jean tells her, quite honestly. They’re pulling up at one of the brunch places off campus the Trojans often frequent, and it’s such a relief to arrive that Jean is out of the car almost before it’s stationary. Still inside, Alvarez is howling.

Laila climbs out after him, her expression amused. “I can’t believe it sometimes either.”

The laughter cuts off, and Alvarez yelps, “Hey!” She and Michal scramble out on the asphalt, both different shades of indignant.

It’s early enough for a Sunday that the café is fairly empty besides the people who get up and run at 6 AM every day. Jean still thinks disparagingly of those people despite the fact he technically is one of them now, today not included. They get seated straight away at a booth with a view of the street.

Alvarez is distracted straight away by the prospect of food, poring over the menu and muttering to Michal, but Jean can feel the eyes of Laila’s daemon on him, unassuming but unignorable. Laila does a better job of pretending that she’s focussed on the idea of breakfast, but her expression is too thoughtful to be considering the merits of pancakes versus muesli.

Their orders are taken by an incredibly peppy teenager with a parakeet daemon and an apron. She does everything short of wink at Jean, but he only barely notices it.

God. He just outed himself to Jeremy Knox in protest at being called straight, in the wake of Jeremy coming out to him. He used to think getting out of the Nest would mean living a quiet life, but he’s still waiting for it.

Once the waitress leaves them to get their coffees, Alvarez’s focus shifts back to Jean like it’s magnetised. “Okay, spill.”

“No,” Jean replies firmly, pointlessly scrolling through his phone apps. He wonders vaguely whether Renee might have some advice for him, but can’t even begin to contemplate how that conversation would start.

“Come _on_.”

“You sound like a fourteen-year-old,” Jean notes.

“It’s true,” Laila agrees.

Alvarez ignores them both. “I’m not going to stop asking, you know. At some point you’re going to give up and tell me, so you may as well save yourself some energy and get it over and done with.”

Joke’s on her, because Jean has been tortured. Listening to her whine isn’t even close to enough to make him break.

“Ignore her, Jean,” Laila says. “You don’t need to tell us anything.”

“I know that,” Jean replies.

“As long as everything is alright?” she asks, and her tone is the killer – she’s gently concerned, with her big dark eyes and less-serious-than-usual tiny frown, looking at him like she really wants to know.

“It’s fine,” Jean attempts, and then, because he’s a sucker, continues, “We had an argument.”

It’s not the truth, but nor is it really a lie. It is at least safer than the truth. He might have told Jeremy about Felicienne, but he’s not prepared for how these two will react, never mind bringing it up in this exposed place full of twee gingham curtains and faux-fifties-diner red vinyl.

At his side Felicienne huffs and headbutts his knee, but otherwise doesn’t protest.

“You had an argument with Jeremy Knox?” Alvarez demands. “Is this an alternate universe?”

“No,” Jean replies. “So, whatever strange conclusions you’ve jumped to are wrong. He’s more likely to kick me off the team than anything else.”

“No he isn’t,” Laila says straight away, utterly certain. “Why on earth would you think that?”

Jean considers the question, realises he doesn’t have a satisfactory answer – or at least one that won’t make the both of them shriek – and shrugs. It’s not like he’s serious – it was a two second thought from this morning, and most of a joke now. “It’s fine.”

“No,” Alvarez interjects, “It is not.”

Jean looks at her and finds her going red in the slow way she does when she gets angry, the flush darkening her cheeks and then spreading. She explodes, “What the fuck, Jean?”

“What?” Jean asks, taken aback.

“For one thing,” she raises a hand with one finger jutting, “You’re wrong and crazy, because there’s nothing that you could do to make Jeremy kick you off the team.”

“I could kill someone,” Jean suggests, because she’s acting like he’s said something impossible, and it’s not. Jean could be gone the second someone decided he wasn’t worth the trouble.

“Well, have you?” Laila asks.

“No-”

“Which leads me to my second point,” Alvarez continues like she hasn’t heard them, waving two fingers in Jean’s face, “Which is, do you really think we would _let_ him?”

Jean stares at her, nonplussed. “You wouldn’t have a say.”

“The Trojans are a democracy, for the most part,” Laila says. She’s so much calmer than Alvarez it’s almost funny. “I mean, if you really have killed someone – or done something incredibly stupid like take steroids or sexually assault someone – then yeah, you’re on your way out. But you haven’t.”

“You don’t know that,” Jean says, though weakly.

She strokes her daemon along his spine, watching him arch into it. “I think I know you better than that, at this point.”

“You don’t.” That, Jean is sure of. They don’t know about Felicienne, they don’t know – they don’t know anything. Though they might know one more thing now than they did, because he just noticeably flinched at Laila using the phrase _sexual assault_ and neither of them is unobservant enough to miss that.

Felicienne leans into him, and he swallows.

“Sure I do,” Laila says, though gently. “But more to the point, I know Jeremy isn’t thinking of kicking you off the team, because I’m his vice-captain and he doesn’t make decisions like that without running it past me or Coach.”

“Hah!” Alvarez says, victorious and loud enough Jean jerks. “So there. Also, Jeremy likes you.”

Jean’s brain does a crazed leap to Jeremy’s sexuality before he gets a grip. It’s true, Jeremy does like him. He might be sweet, he might be helpful, but there’s no way either last night or this morning would have happened if Jean were a normal third-line newbie. Also, he told him as much this morning.

“Alright,” Jean says, more to shut them up than anything else. “He’s not going to kick me out.”

Laila pats his hand, with the same brand of condescension as she showed him last night. “Nope. And if you want to talk about what you two were arguing over, we’re here to listen.”

“I’d rather die,” Jean tells her. “And it’s, uh – we talked. This morning.”

Alvarez sighs abruptly, going from furious to relaxed in a second. It makes her smile seem far more creepy, that quick change of emotion. “That’s not nearly as exciting, but okay.”

“Okay?” Jean asks. He’s actually dreading anything else she might say.

“Okay,” she replies, her smile growing. Actually, more unnerving than the speed of her emotional shift is the fact that that expression is actually genuine.

“Coffee!” The waitress chirps, and Jean has never been so happy for a distraction as she puts their drinks down.

“Healthy conflict resolution is Trojan culture,” Alvarez says once they’re alone again, raising her mug to him, and then finally, finally Laila changes the subject.

 

* * *

 

Jeremy has made a big mistake.

When he woke up this morning, his head pounding and his eyes practically glued shut, his first thought hadn’t been Jean’s revelation from last night. It _had_ been about Jean, though.

Yeah, his clearest memory first thing this morning was absolutely the moment he, while half-hugging Jean and sloppily drunk, looked up into Jean’s face and realised exactly why he’s so invested in him and his health and happiness. Starting with the face – oh, Christ, that face – and ending with the personality, stoic with a touch of dry humour, with a slight detour involving a whole lot of muscle in the middle.

All of that, _and_ Jeremy wants to protect him. He wants it so much that if someone invented time-travel, his first mission would be going back and killing every person who has ever even looked at Jean wrong. It’s a match made in hell, probably.

And then he’d said, surprised, _I’m not straight_. Never mind a match made in hell, Jeremy is already there and burning.

“Ugh,” he whimpers into Salome’s fur. He’s sitting with his back to his bedroom door, her between his knees and long-suffering. “I can’t believe this happened.”

“I can,” she replies, her voice vibrating through her chest and into his. “I saw this happening from the moment we went to Palmetto.”

“You did not!”

She hums. “Whatever you need to tell yourself.”

Jeremy pulls back an inch to stare at the back of her head. “At least I didn’t rub my face on him.” Because that’s absolutely what she did to Felicienne.

“I wouldn’t start congratulating yourself for your self-control just yet,” Salome replies evenly. It’s only the flicker of her ears that gives her away. “Besides, it’s not like I could talk to her.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself,” Jeremy mimics, and then squawks when she turns and shoves him down onto his side with one paw.

“Get into bed,” she grumbles, but licks his hair with her rough tongue anyway. He curls an arm around her neck and cuddles her for a moment before doing as she says.

All this drama is exhausting. He crawls under his blankets and is only awake long enough to feel the mattress roll with Salome’s weight before he’s out.


End file.
